We had our first big snow in St. Louis last Monday. After a morning outside with the kids, I posted a few photos to Facebook with the caption, "Snowventures!" They were photos of two smiling kids, hugging, making snow angels, laughing. According to Facebook, we had a picture perfect snow day.
The reality is, the majority of our time was filled with fights over whose turn it was on the sled, my older child repeatedly running away and pouting, and my younger child taking her mittens off, sticking her hands in the snow and crying, then doing it again. It was a snowventure for sure, but not a perfect one.
It's not that it's ever bad to post photos of happy kids doing fun things. But that's pretty much all I post about my kids. I rarely admit on Facebook that parenting is really hard almost all of the time. For every smiling photo with everyone looking at the camera, there are many more moments of tantrums, fights, lost tempers, using the TV for a few moments of peace, doling out too many sweets, etc.
By not sharing how real parenthood is, I'm giving the impression that I've got it down, that I'm a perfect parent. And I am not. Not anywhere close. And I can't be.
I can't tell you what a breath of fresh air it is to see a friend post on Facebook about having a difficult day with their children. It brings great comfort to read someone's real unedited post about how imperfect of a parent they are. I'm able to read it and say, "me too! I'm right there with you!" I wish there were more of that going on on social media. I guess that's why I started this whole thing.
When Facebook feeds are filled with "me too!" and "I'm right there with you!" that's when we are letting the grace of God and grace of community in. It isn't perfect. But its more beautiful than any snow day picture I've ever seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment