Why Don’t People Talk About Parenthood The Way I Want Them To?
On internet debates, depressing honesty and toxic positivity, and the joy of reading aloud a picture book.
“I am begging parents, especially new parents, and especially mothers — to post their positive experiences with parenthood. Please!! You have no idea how depressing the mainstream parenting stories currently are!!” someone recently tweeted.
I had to pause for a moment when I read this, because the sentiment hit home — and didn’t.
Because I’ve seen many iterations of another question asking almost the opposite: “why didn’t anyone tell me being a parent would be this hard? Why is no one talking about this?”
The very simple answer that makes sense of these two extremes is, of course, that there are a lot of people talking about lots of things on the internet and many different perspectives — but I think there’s more to it than that.
The Pendulum
Perfect parenting abounds on social media: the posed Facebook pictures with all the children smiling perfectly in pristine white button-down shirts on a beach, the Instagram reels of serene mamas (never moms! only mamas) making sourdough bread from scratch, the TikToks with that infernal…
