On My Mind

On any given day, I can scroll through my Facebook newsfeed and find a dozen statuses about raising kids. M took her kids to get new shoes yesterday. The oldest boy (6) wanted pink Converse sneakers. S's son had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning and got shots. He's running a fever today. H is asking for advice on potty training her daughter. K's three year old is reading!

On the surface, all of this is fine, but look a little deeper and something alarming is occurring. There are 12 comments about the pink sneakers. Most of them are along the lines of LOL, but then there's the one that jokes that she'll be buying tutus next. That's hurtful. S's status has 37 comments. "Poor baby!" and then this doozy, "Have you considered delaying vaccinations?" That's damaging.

Seeking parenting advice from friends is understandable. Raising my children is the most important thing I'll do in my lifetime. But, what makes our Facebook friends the authority on many of these issues? Did S's friend attend medical school where she learned the harmful effects of vaccines? Doubtful. Is her child's pediatrician suggesting she delay vaccines? Doubtful. Has she read something published in People magazine about Jenny McCarthy's belief that autism can be linked to vaccines? Probably. (There's an interesting TIME article about McCarthy's influence here.) Has she taken advice from a friend who is also delaying vaccines? Maybe.

Vaccinations are just one of the polarizing issues in parenting today. Breastfeeding, homeschooling, television watching, co-sleeping, spanking, organic eating, potty training, natural cleaning supplies, and early literacy are some other topics that pit parent against parent.

I fall victim to this nonsense all too often. A few nights ago, I was reading a blog written by a woman whose child is one week older than Jack. I have never met this woman. Yet when she wrote that her daughter, who I will remind you is exactly Jack's age, could identify all of her letters and could write her name, my heart started to race. Is Jack falling behind because of a bad decision I've made? Right behind my heart racing came my mind running to catch up. How could I rectify this situation. Surely Jack had to catch up, right? It took me too long to recall everything I learned in college about early literacy. I, an education major, am an authority on early literacy, not the stay at home mom who went to business school. I know learning all the letters isn't the way to foster a love of reading in my children. Pulling them onto my lap and reading to them will have more benefits in the long run, and I do that everyday. Breathe, Ellie.

I've sought advice on Facebook. I've gotten some good advice on Facebook. But, I've also gotten some very bad advice on Facebook. Once I was told to put some honey in Jack's baby food to sweeten it up enough for him to eat it. Luckily, my pediatrician had already made it clear that I was not to feed Jack honey before he was two years old. If I had followed my friend's advice, I could have given Jack botulism. Bad advice. Normally the advice I consider good advice is given by someone I have contact with outside of Facebook, my family or real world friends.

Getting bad advice from self-appointed authority figures is not my only gripe with social media. Pinterest, Facebook, and blogs have a way of making me feel like I'm a bad mother. I'm clearly not doing enough for my children because that mom threw one heck of a pirate themed birthday party. To some degree, having this "pinspiration" is motivating. At the degree I typically operate on, Pinterest erodes my confidence and puts more on my plate than I can ever realistically get done. This feeling of failure is depressing. Having a depressed or overwhelmed mother obviously isn't good for the kids. And it doesn't stop with comparing myself to these other mothers. It extends to comparing my children to other children. Nothing good is going to come from that. Nothing good is going to come from that because people don't write about the nasty stuff that happens at their houses. They only write about their three year old reading and their one year old's 30 word vocabulary.

Sometimes I feel like having all the information that Google puts at my fingertips is debilitating, stifling, and impedes my ability to make a decision. John and I have spent a lot of time discussing Jack attending preschool lately. Google "advantages of preschool" and you will find 3,310,000 results. Yikes! That means I have to send my child to preschool, right? Maybe not. Most of the advantages discussed in those 3,000,000+ results focus on pre-reading and pre-math. I can teach Jack those things in fun and engaging ways just like a preschool teacher would. Of course there is the social aspect, but we can figure out ways to get Jack more social time. If the trade-off is our family being $200 a month poorer, is it worth it? We're leaning towards no. Despite whatever preschool decision we make, Jack will do fine in school. He's smart, and he is blessed with two parents who care that he succeeds in school. Go away, Google. Get out of my head! Stop trying to make my decisions for me.

So, what's the solution? Quit Facebook? Quit Pinterest? Quit reading blogs? Quit Googling? That would definitely take care of the problem, but instead I've just decided to become more aware; more aware of the fact that people have opinions and want to give advice but that I don't have to share those opinions or take their advice. This is our life. Doing it the same way as my friends on Facebook doesn't make sense. Their situations are not the same. Their children are not the same. I am the mother I am, and judging from the grins, giggles,  hugs, and kisses I earn every day I would say I'm holding my own.