BOY TRAPPED

Where the inside of my mind leaks onto the screen.

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Lost Easter Reflections

I'm not sure how this ended up unpublished in my drafts folder, but since I still found it interesting, I figured it was worth posting - even late.

I read a pretty great re-post awhile ago about the reasons why Facebook and other social media can be pretty destructive for women.  According to the article, whether we are the crafty, homemade mom or the above-and-beyond fancy trimmings mom, or the quality time with the kids mom (or any mom between), we tend to feel insecure when we wee the brightly colored evidence of the other moms, laid out Instagram style.  And if we're lucky enough to escape self-doubt, we probably aren't managing to escape passing judgement on the moms who do it differently than we do.

I think the "big deal" days are probably worse for us as mothers.  Day after Easter for example.  I have definitely compared my family to the ones with matching outfits, to the ones who skipped Easter eggs in favor of a Christ-centered day, to the ones with full-on Easter loot.  I'm even comparing this year's holiday with favorites from my own past. 

For all the inspiration on Pinterest, for all the joy brought seeing pictures of friends and family, for all the ease of communicating with the masses, social media really is a danger zone.  And it's because we choose what others get to see.  Even when we post our failures, we get to tie them up with pretty little hindsight bows. 

The danger of the social internet is in the collective experience.  We end up feeling like part of a big, homogeneous mass, when what we should really feel like is a unique component of a whole.  We're all a big salad.  I can be bacon bits, and you can be croutons, and it can still all exist happily together.
My own Easter included plenty of ups and a few downs (picture a pre-Sacrament meeting breakdown in the clerk's office complete with solitary tears and an abandoned bottle of green nail polish).  Overall, it was awesome.  Everything a bacon-bit Easter should be.  I hope yours was just as unique and just as memorable!  And I hope nobody is worried about perfect.

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