Woman watching mum and daughter at pool exposes truth behind social media post
Social media is a great way to see a snapshot of other people's lives, but often, it doesn't reflect the whole reality of things that are going on.
We may see posed images, idealistic holidays, and fun nights out without knowing the context or behind-the-scenes details about how many photos have been taken before they settled on that one - and we may compare ourselves to them. But as the old saying goes, 'comparison is the thief of joy', and one woman took to social media to explain why we shouldn't believe everything we see on our perfectly curated feeds.
After heading to the pool, the woman who posted, Jen, watched as a young mum and her daughter entered dressed in adorable matching swimming suits. The young girl waited patiently as her mum spent a few minutes on the phone before she proceeded to spread out their haul of pool toys and sunscreen on a matching towel.
Finding just the right angle and light, the mum pulled out a tripod and took a few selfies with her child. Jen then recalled that the young girl asked if they could get into the pool but was told to wait while her parent posed her in front of the pool, then made her go into the water, and come back out, all while she had a big smile on her face and said cheese "like she'd done it a million times."
The little one was then told she could play while her mum took a phone call and she swam around for a couple of minutes, then she politely asked "Mama, can you come in the water with me, please?"
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"Mama glanced over at her but never got off the phone", Jen wrote in 2019. "After 10 minutes mama ended her call, collected the sunscreen that was never applied, the water toys that never touched the water, and then her daughter and left the pool. I sat there thinking about what I'd witnessed for a while afterward. I imagined the photos she took being perfectly edited and posted to social media with a caption like 'Pool time with my girly! #Makingmemories'."
Jen then had a thought that other, more stressed and less social media savvy, mums would see the perfectly curated image and feel sad, even "comparing" themselves to the "perfect mama at the pool." She was thinking of a mum in a messy house, tired because she'd spent her day cooking, caring, cleaning, and playing with her children, thinking she wasn't good enough because of the perfection she saw on her feed.
"She's going to feel like a failure. Ugh!! She'll never know that how she spent her time that day was so much better in God's eyes and in her children's eyes than that 'perfect mama' at the pool. What we see on social media isn't always real. Sometimes, and often, it's a complete set-up. It's staged and filtered and it's counterfeit.
"Mamas, don't compare yourself. You ARE enough! You are amazing and the very best part is that you are REAL! Your dirty shirt and your messy house and your happy children are real and they are proof that you are doing it right."
The woman did receive some backlash for mum-shaming, but Jen later added that she in no way intended to judge the mum for her actions or her reasons for doing it, but simply wanted to highlight that the filtered photos we see on social media 'are not a full depiction of real life'. Many agreed, however, with one penning: "This is sooo very true. Real deal right here."
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