03 2 / 2012
Facebook: Acknowledgement for Moms
Written by BROOKE
I know you have one of these friends too. On a daily basis her Facebook status usually says something like the following:
“Gave birth, ran 12 miles, canned tomatoes I grew in my own garden, cleaned my baseboards with a toothbrush, made my family an organic dinner, took some to the neighbors, whipped up a batch of homemade bread with wheat I ground myself and now I’m pooped! Time for The Bachelor!”
Gag. Overachiever. Why does she have to post that on Facebook? Does she want the rest of us to feel bad about ourselves? Job well done.
And then, the other day I did it, too. I Facebook-bragged about cleaning. It was only my pantry; I cleaned it out and organized it. It was something that had been on my to-do list for about, umm, four years (not joking). I did it. And, well, I knew something. I knew that my KIDS were not going to open up the pantry and say “Wow mom! Look how clean and organized this is! It must have taken you all day! Good job, thanks!” I mean, if they said anything remotely like that I would have keeled over and died right there on the spot. No, they just wanted to know where their snacks were now. And my husband? Well I SHOULD be able to count on him to acknowledge that type of thing but let’s be honest. He’s also pretty much only worrying about snacks. I learned the lesson about him and acknowledgement when I proudly showed him one of the cupboards I had spent all day reorganizing in the kitchen shortly after Zach was born. I was SO proud of my productivity. His response? To open up another cupboard, unorganized and overflowing with stuff, and say “What about this one?” I gave up on him after that.
So what’s a mom to do? I mean come on, I spent ALL day on this project! So I did it. I wrote about it on Facebook. And you know what? It made me feel good! I got the virtual pats on the back from my mom friends. Even those virtual thumbs up brought me a little smile and made me feel like, see, I’m doing a good job here!
I even took a picture of part of my organized pantry: the snack basket I made for the kids (which turned out to be an epic fail but that’s for another post!)
And the best part? I didn’t have to post the next day that we stayed in our pajamas and watched movies all day. Nope, no one has to know about that. So now, instead of rolling my eyes at my friends who post about their productive days, I acknowledge them. I tell them, “good job supermom!” or “I could never do that!” After all, isn’t that what we’re all looking for? A little pat on the back for the thankless job we do every day. Thank you Facebook for giving us moms a place to be acknowledged for all the hard work we do.
