Friday, July 24, 2009

mums and 'oversharing'

Nathan has been thinking about parents (let's face it, mothers) oversharing on facebook, telling everyone the gory details of pregnancy and baby and infant care, and reporting interesting (or not so interesting) happenings of the day. After many comments, Nathan seems to have moved a little in his thoughts on what constitutes oversharing. It's all got me thinking about why we report on our kids. Here are my thoughts.
  • This is not new. Women have talked about the mundane details of their kids' lives since the dawn of time. People have been bored by it, written about how boring it can be to listen to, and then done it themselves. The online thing is new-ish, but in a way much better than in face to face conversation because you have the option not to read.
  • There is nothing like the excitement of being pregnant. Especially the first time. It's like being in love. You are always thinking about it. It's impossible not to talk about it and write about it. (Maybe just don't mention the....[I'd write a word starting with Hem.. here, but it would scare Nathan.]
  • Being at home with kids is intense. I notice every little thing that they do. My mind is focussed on them. What else would I talk about?
  • Being at home with kids can sap your self esteem. I'm at home by myself. I'm lonely. I feel fat. I've not had a good night's sleep for a long long time and my mind doesn't feel at all sharp. I'm not getting out much. Apart from my kids, there's not alot going on for me. What else do I have to talk about?
  • I love my children. I know that other parents are a little delusional about their kid's giftedness, but my child really is amazing. It's hard not to tell everyone. (I'm not being nasty here. All mothers should think this way about their kids. (But mine are unusually special!))
  • Bodily functions really are amazing and amusing. Especially when you can see the whole digestive process from start to finish. Kiwi fruit? Sultanas? Corn? (Need I say more?)
  • It is fantastic when our kids reach particular milestones. It is right to celebrate them!
  • Hearing what other women are experiencing in their homes, validates the mundane acts of service that I perform in my home. When I feel like I'm leading a nothing life, your status updates comfort me. So keep them up!
As a mum, one of the things you want most of all is for someone to tell you that you are doing a good job. You almost never get positive comments on your parenting, but negative feedback abounds: glares in the shops, sighs at church, straight out criticism, tantrums... When Nathan (our oldest) was 18 months old, my mother-in-law told me I was doing well. It meant a lot.

Maybe clicking the 'like' button occasionally could be encouraging.

16 comments:

  1. Here's the problem...

    "The online thing is new-ish, but in a way much better than in face to face conversation because you have the option not to read."

    You don't really. I have the option of removing mothers from my friends list on Facebook - but I can't, without tweaking settings or removing them. And I don't want to opt out because plenty of mothers are capable of overcoming parental myopia.

    "I love my children. "

    You know what. I'm sure you do. I don't really share that love - and nor should I, they're not my children.

    I love my wife. Deeply. I don't talk about that love because it would make people dry retch.

    "It is fantastic when our kids reach particular milestones. It is right to celebrate them!"

    Yes. It is fantastic. You should email your parents. Or keep it to actual milestones... a "milestone" is such a subjective thing.

    "Hearing what other women are experiencing in their homes, validates the mundane acts of service that I perform in my home. When I feel like I'm leading a nothing life, your status updates comfort me. So keep them up!"

    This is what support groups are for. Facebook is not a support group.

    Please tell me how this is different to preachers talking up their preaching, or advertising events for the specific subset of their friends who belong to their church. Someone wise once said that they should do that in a Facebook group...

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  2. did you know those little sugar packets from cafes go right through, too?

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  3. Nathan - if you have some friends who always post Junior's latest doing's as their fb status, just Hide that person in your News Feed (hover over the person's status and the Hide button shows up towards the right hand end); you don't actually have to disown them as a friend.

    I tend to Hide all those updates about the fb games that my friends play. That way I get info on my friends without having to scroll through wads of uninteresting game info.

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  4. I think you are being just a tad too sensitive, Nathan. If we censored everyone...well your 'over blogging' might be next.

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  5. re: Laetitia's comment - I don't want to hide them in case they say useful stuff (and many do).

    I'm really not that worried about it. I can skim past them. It just irks me. So I wrote about it on my blog. And got condemned by the mother brigade. And now I am left fighting a rear guard action while other people who think the same way but didn't say anything slink off into the shadows.

    Wendy - I think a blog is a great forum for expressing more personal stuff, because you can be "friends" with someone without being confronted with what they write. It's much more "opt in"...

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  6. Facebook is a support group. For me, for my friends. We support each other.
    Simone I'm with you. Please share on Facebook - and I can say that as a single, never-married, never-dated, never-romantically-involved person, I like to know how my mothering friends are going, including things like struggling with toilet training. It helps me remember the difficulties of parenting and keeps me content in my own God-given circumstances.

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  7. I think that last comment is a really excellent one, Simone. Validating the mundane is not an insignificant thing. Service often feels mundane and it's good to hear about the sacrifices being made.

    Nathan, chill out mate. Women make huge sacrifices. Ask my highly-qualified, highly-intelligent stay-at-home wife. Let them talk about it and adjust your facebook settings, for pete's sake.

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  8. Blogs are not for everyone, Nathan. Especially those of us who are up to their armpits in any variety of bodily fluid. Facebook is much more accessible for a quick comment about the latest disaster or mundane activity that is driving you out of your brain.

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  9. Lest it gets lost - I'm still waiting for an answer to this question:

    This is what support groups are for. Facebook is not a support group.

    Please tell me how this is different to preachers talking up their preaching, or advertising events for the specific subset of their friends who belong to their church. Someone wise once said that they should do that in a Facebook group...

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  10. "Nathan, chill out mate. Women make huge sacrifices. Ask my highly-qualified, highly-intelligent stay-at-home wife. Let them talk about it and adjust your facebook settings, for pete's sake."

    How can I possibly argue with that sort of emotive statement...

    I'm not against them talking about it, I just think there are better places.

    I'm not against couples talking about their sex lives or love for their spouses - but I'm against that happening on Facebook. It's intimate. And Facebook isn't.

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  11. Nathan, you didn't just "write about it" on your blog, you pretty well condemned parents who do it and told them outright they were wrong to do it.

    There is a massive difference between complaining you were up half the night because your kid was throwing up every 2 hours, and talking about sex lives.

    And it is different to preachers talking about their preaching, because that reeks of self-importance. There's nothing self-important about laughing at your kid for getting stuck in the toilet, telling people your kid got his first tooth, or complaining that you've just changed your 6-month old for the fourth time in 2 hours because he's sick.

    Imagine Facebook as any big gathering of your friends. They are all going to be talking about a million different things, some of them you might not care about. You can go and join in a different conversation.

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  12. "you pretty well condemned parents who do it and told them outright they were wrong to do it."

    Yes I did. On my blog.

    "There is a massive difference between complaining you were up half the night because your kid was throwing up every 2 hours, and talking about sex lives."

    One difference is that my wife can tell me not to talk about things like that because they embarrass her - children can't really do that until they're a little older.

    "Imagine Facebook as any big gathering of your friends. They are all going to be talking about a million different things, some of them you might not care about. You can go and join in a different conversation."

    There are "rules" for polite conversation that should be adhered to in both. Not talking to people about things that alienate or annoy them is one of those things.

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  13. One of the differences in saying such things in person vs on Facebook is that you don't get the non-verbal feedback about whether what you've said is annoying or not.

    Chances are in a group of mums sharing about poo stories, Nathan would wander off and find someone without children with whom to complain about these parents...You can do that on Facebook too. So many status updates you can just skim over.

    Regarding Facebook being a support group. It IS on a way, for some of us. Many people are socially isolated and use Facebook to help meet that emotional need. Mothering is one of those professions which can easily socially isolate you, no matter where you live. I believe there ARE support groups on the net for mothers, but personally I'd rather share with friends.

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  14. I think the difference between talking about your child being sick all night and talking about your sex life goes beyond the fact it might embarrass the person about whom you're talking.

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  15. Besides, I'm pretty sure it's a parent's prerogative to embarrass their child :P

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