Motherhood according to Facebook and Instagram

I want to be honest. 

Today that's what I want to be: HONEST and humble... transparent and HUMAN. 

And I want to use my words to explode and to burst everyone's bubbles too because I feel there is a need to do that. So, here goes nothing, and everything.

I've been having one of the roughest times of my life lately. I've never experienced so much happiness and sadness at the same time. I've never felt more exhausted and miserable but lucky in my entire existence. And I feel like I need to be honest with all of you because I don't want you to think that because I portray myself always happy that I'm always happy. 

(I'm not... My husband could talk to you more about that.)

I've been thinking a lot about how social media has affected our lives and our perception about motherhood and marriage and relationships (just because this is what I think about the most lately). We always publish the perfect pictures, the perfect moments... but life doesn't have a filter, you don't crop or retake. Life is raw; it can be hard and it can make you cry. 

I never take pictures of my teething baby crying (oh, that boy can cry!), in fact I have way too many  pictures of him sleeping; quite, still. I portray him all perfect when in reality he is just a normal, average baby that nurse every two hours during the night, that gets upset, that likes tickles, that cries when he gets hurts... But I contribute to that whole notion about motherhood being the easiest, most gentle job you would ever had. When in reality some days my husband comes home from work and I'm still in my pjs, I haven't brushed my teeth yet, I probably burnt our dinner, the teething baby has refused to nap, there is a pile of dishes in the sink, blah, blah, blah...and I JUST want 2 minutes to go poop alone. Just 2 minutes. 

When I think about what I've known about motherhood I always think about my own mom. I barely remember her being mad or taken a moment for herself. She was always with us. In fact, I remember being playing with my toys in front of her while she was in the bathroom. She never closed her door and she didn't seemed bothered by us... She never asked for help and she had TWO babies. Why can't I be more like that? 

And then the other thought: what if I wasn't born to be a mom? Should I have stayed in school and do my Phd, kept writing about feminism and culture and all that jazz and just get a pet? Because this is NOT what I expected. I definitely don't have that mama glow that Instagram makes you have every day. My life doesn't sound as funny as I make it look in my statuses on Facebook. I probably get frustrated as often as I smile...and there is a constant up and down of hormonal emotions. 

It could be easier to post for everyone to see my struggles, and how I think I fail to "mom" the way I want to do it... How I fail to be always calm and the perfect smiley wife to my husband ALL the time. But I don't want to do that, because 1- there is already too much negativity and sadness in the world and  2- because that only belongs to us and to our past. Yes, relationships are private and we DESERVE to keep them private and sacred, but that doesn't mean life is a constant parade of rainbows and unicorns. And that doesn't mean that because I don't post about it that I have a baby that never cries, that always takes his naps, that plays with his toys for hours, that never whines when I'm not holding him for 2 seconds, yada yada yada... That doesn't mean that I haven't screamed to my husband and that we live in a constant stage of cupcake farts. 

But that's how life is and we shouldn't forget about that. That we are humans living a real life behind that Facebook perfect profile picture. And that beyond that I've chosen to remember the bliss of my life, because I do have a wonderful life. More beautiful than those pictures I post. Because even though we are an imperfect family, we forgive and start fresh... And because we know that just like everything in life nothing stays, everything evolves, and this rough stage of ups and downs shall also pass.