I’ve never really had a problem with Instagram Envy until I had a baby. I mean, sure, I would drool over someone’s travel photos, their bright airy home, their gorgeous built-in bookshelves or the seemingly exciting life they led and maybe I would feel a little *something* but I would go about my day and that was that. I was of the “it’s everybody’s highlight reel” mode of thinking and so it never really GOT to me. I didn’t feel that REAL envy that put a damper on my day or made me feel bad about myself.
I don’t know what has happened since I had Riley. At first, I think, it started with me following a bunch of Instagrammers who happened to have babies around the same time as me. I was in the trenches of my PPD which made life hard and to see all these happy-go-lucky mamas with their precious babies gave me so much envy. I was crying; they were taking gorgeous photos and leaving their house with their gorgeous babies and enjoying life. And I was not. I was not physically allowed to do much with my recovery (4th degree tearing woohoo) and I mentally couldn’t.
And I know, I KNOWWWW the grass is greener on the other side of an Instagram feed and they might not have been sharing their 3am crying sessions or their breastfeeding troubles. But I still felt a distinct feeling that they were living NORMAL lives while I felt like I was in hell. Why was their newborn experience different than mine? I still feel like a terrible mom for not having many pictures of her first few weeks (and I know pictures do not make a good or bad mom…I KNOW. But mom guilt is real).
But as I got better and things became more normal I still felt so much envy. These blogger moms I followed still looked like a million bucks everyday while I was just trying to make a goal to get dressed (one of my self-care musts). My face and hair looked like I hadn’t slept in 20 years while they looked like they could be ready for a photoshoot. No, seriously, it’s like 2pm on a random Tuesday and they are at home with their kids with full makeup on and perfectly styled hair and I’m not sure if I brushed my teeth yet. Their bright airy beautiful homes looked clean and I was looking at piles of laundry and dishes and all the crap we just couldn’t/didn’t feel like coming up with. They were thriving and I felt like I was barely hanging on. Instagram Motherhood was beautiful and crisp and clean and my motherhood looked just straight up messy.
My Instagram envy escalated with my feelings around the Instagrammable motherhood. Mine was most definitely not Instagrammable….in the sense of what seems to make up what is Instagrammable — bright, clean, themed type feeds. Perfection. Beauty. Whimsy. Magazine worthy.
My motherhood (despite my best efforts) was unwashed mom hair buns, no makeup, piles of dishes, wearing my same favorite leggings and baggy shirt, a cluttered one bedroom apartment with old carpets and dark lighting and not HGTV-worthy style, constant exhaustion, and struggles to fit into this new role as mom.
Then it moved on to envy of all these feeds of people, without kids, who look free and can do whatever they want a whim. They can brunch when they want and not worry about an overtired baby. They can stay out late. They can sleep in. They aren’t woken up at 3am to a baby who decided they don’t like sleep anymore. Their brains aren’t consumed with the things my brain is consumed with every minute and every hour. They can go on a weekend getaway without it being A Big Damn Deal that needs coordination. THEY HAVE TIME TO PURSUE THE THINGS THEY WANT TO PURSUE.
These people, I realized, are all living the kind of life I was previously living and my envy from the trenches of motherhood was real. I miss some of these aspects of my pre-baby life so desperately especially in the harder moments of motherhood.
There is no jet-setting, there is no stylish HGTV living space, there is no perfectly done hair, I rarely have the energy for makeup, my postpartum body doesn’t fit in my old clothes despite having lost the weight, there is zero perfection here. Brunching with my friends feels like the biggest luxury, my free time window is minuscule.
My Instagram envy ballooned until I came to a place of acceptance. Acceptance that this is the season of life I’m in and I must embrace it and the fact that I can’t worry about what my motherhood looks like to my Instagram feed.
My life is not Instagrammable.
I’m okay with that.
Sort of.
I will be.
My motherhood currently looks like sitting in my sweatpants with my husband, toys on the floor because we can’t be bothered to clean them up, a line of unwashed bottles that need to be washed because we don’t have any left and thinking we should probably going to bed now at 9pm because she, a formerly perfect sleeper, has been an unpredictable nighttime gremlin.
But my motherhood is also endless cuddles, the most legit mischievous baby who makes me laugh so hard every day, a baby who teaches me new things all the time and makes me want to be better, getting excited with her every time she learns something new, reading books before bedtime and laughing when she gets pissed it’s time for bed as she stares longingly at her books.
My motherhood might be super messy captured on Instagram but it feels really special sometimes in the midst of our small apartment with worn carpet, outdated appliances, mismatched furniture, piles of books and a minefield of toys and laundry.
I’ve found myself staying on Instagram Stories a lot because I feel like the messiness is more accepted. It doesn’t have to be as perfect (although I swear sometimes it makes me more envious of these fashion/lifestyle/mommy bloggers I follow with babies my age when I see their behind the scenes vs MINE) and I’m not worried about how Instagrammable a moment is on Instagram Stories.
I do love following beautiful and clean feeds that radiate beauty and gorgeous photos and adventure and wonder. I love all things aesthetically pleasing. I like to follow the aesthetically pleasing and Instagram worthy feeds and don’t feel the same way when I see dark and grainy photos. I do like to put out my best photos on my feed. It’s just the truth.
But, on a personal level, I have needed to reign it in and not let it make my motherhood and my life feel less worthy because isn’t ~Instagrammable~ like those feeds might be. I need to remember I don’t have the whole picture to anyone’s motherhood or anyone’s life. And a perfectly captured photo does not make a motherhood.
I never thought Instagram Envy was a thing that would catch me hook, line and sinker but here I am and I’m just going to keep reminding myself that: My motherhood (and my life) is not defined by how Instagrammable it is.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to curate a nice Instagram feed or work on my Instagram game but what it means is that I’m not going to let Instagram define my motherhood, my life or my worth.
LET’S TALK:
Is Instagram envy a thing you have struggled with/struggle with?
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P.S. A newborn essentials list aka the survival guide you need // Our Favorite Items For 3-6 Month Olds
Erica Robyn says
<3! Lovely post!! This is such an important thing to discuss!
I struggle with instagram every now and again. I'm definitely more aware of how stuff like this affects me than I was a few years ago. For example, when I was seeing a bunch of my friends getting engaged, their instagram photos were PERFECT. I was so jealous. I cried over it numerous times. I knew it was silly to be upset about, that my time would come eventually, but for some reason I just couldn't handle it. All of my friends were getting engaged, married, having babies… and here I was posting about books and tea.
It took me a LONG time to get over this once I realized it was an issue.
Jamie says
Omg yes so hard to see that kind of stuff and feel like you are “behind”. and it’s so important to be in touch with how things like social media are making you feel!
April Books & Wine says
Oh yes girl, I have been there. I actually just read a great post on A Beautiful Mess about overly curated feeds and how it leads us to thinking this way. The post then goes on to talk about how a lot of feeds look the same and how we miss a little bit of authenticity. It was really impacting. And so, now I find myself posting more on IG now that I am not as stymied by this whole must look nice, how do I do aesthetics? Because at the end of the day, my baby is super cute, I can crop the mess out, and the books I’m posting about are really the focus. But yes yes yes, my house is a damn mess right now, we brought everything inside from the party and just left it strewn on the couch. There’s a pile of dishes in the sink. Bottles need to be washed. Thankfully our laundry is hidden downstairs in the basement. And plus, you can definitely tell the baseboards need to be run with the wipe. Ah well, cliche as it sounds, we’re making memories.
Also okay can I just also say I feel you on the not having as many early pictures. There’s very few pictures of myself and Teddy at early life stages because I gained so much weight during pregnancy that I hated how I look. I still don’t love how I look and am not back to pre-pregnancy weight but it’s better to the point where I take more pictures with him. I’m just really glad you wrote this. Feels good to be less alone, granted for me the reasons are much, much different.
Jamie says
Ooh I’m behind on my blog reading will have to take a look at their post!
I’m glad I’m not the only one with a messy house right now haha and oh god yeah our baseboards need some TLC.
And yessss that makes me feel better!! And I cried the other day bcause aside from the pics my sis took right when she came out and was on me…we never took a single picture of me and her in the hospital. I was so preoccupied with breastfeeding her, how terrible my vag felt, my anxiety about my recovery and how tired I was that I just never got any pics plus I looked like a hot mess.!! Seriously I saw so many gorgeous looking mamas on Instagram who looked photo shoot ready in the hospital with their babies and I looked like a trash panda.
Kaity says
I sooooo get this. I will also say, as a Mama of a 3 and 1.5 year old, the baby stage kind of sucks. You expect it to be all snuggles and beautiful baby clothes and cute Instagram pictures and it’s just not. It’s breastmilk stains, and piles of laundry, and dark circles under your eyes. Which is not Instagrammable, but in my opinion, is its own kind of beautiful.
Leah @ The Pretty Good Gatsby says
I love this. (And for what it’s worth, I absolutely adore your IG stories!!)
Matt and I don’t have any kids yet (though if he had his way, we’d have like 10 by now haha), but I completely feel you on the instagram envy. There are a few bloggers I follow who seem to have it all…and one just recently celebrated her 21st birthday. That howl you hear is me not-so-silently weeping. When I was 21 I most definitely wasn’t living a super cute wanderlusty van life while still maintaining a flawless wardrobe and picture-perfect smoothie bowls for every meal. I’ll be 30 this September and, while I wouldn’t trade Matt and my pups for anything, I still can’t shake that feeling. My life is NOT instagrammable – I’m still in pjs, the dogs just woke up from naps and are tearing through the house, and we STILL haven’t gotten around to painting some of the rooms (it’ll be 3 years this July since we bought the house, we’ve been way too lazy there), but I’m becoming okay with that.
Christine says
Totally hear you. I’ve given myself a lot more permission to unfollow people if they give me more jealousy or like THAT IS NOT REAL vibes than just inspiration and aesthetic enjoyment. Keeping my feed more curated to people who inspire more JOY in my life has been a real game changer.
Nikki says
I feel the same way about pictures from the first few days and weeks after my little one was born. I had HELLP syndrome so the c-section was emergency and I felt beyond awful afterward. I don’t have the cute new infant in his hospital hat, etc. type of pics. I didn’t even realize we had an option to get pictures done for us until we were home. I’m still super disappointed in myself.
Ginger @ GReads! says
As someone who is not married & most likely never having kids of her own (two things I never thought I’d say about myself), I must accept that it’s a result of the choices I made. I think we’ll always be curious & a bit jealous of lives we don’t lead ourselves. It’s only natural. For what it’s worth, sometimes I have a really hard time seeing posts showing happy families. But I also know I can’t blame anyone, or anything, for my reaction. It’s a struggle I must deal with on my own. It’s a day to say struggle, for sure.
Kritika says
I’m a few years younger than you so my instagram is full of friends getting engaged right now, and I love seeing their cute proposals and perfectly posed ring-showing photos, but sometimes I get this pang of envy like “Am I inadequate? Why are all my friends getting engaged while I’ve never even been in a relationship yet?” I love my friends and am truly happy for them, and I know no one is instagramming the hard parts of relationships, but looking from the outside in it feels like such a lovely, happy world that I am not allowed to be a part of :/
I’ve been following a lot more bookstagrammers now so I see more encouraging/positivity posts and posts that make me happy in between all the picture-perfect-life posts, it’s helped!
Alexandra says
I don’t have Instagram, so this isn’t something I’ve experienced exactly, but I remember while my husband and I were trying to get pregnant, it felt like there were SO MANY people announcing their pregnancies on Facebook – mostly acquaintances rather than friends, or even people I didn’t even know but who would pop up on my feed because someone had commented on their post. And in the wider scheme of things, we weren’t even trying all that long, but I still found it SO hard. If we’d had really long term infertility issues I might have needed to take a break from FB just to give myself the space to process all the feelings and fears (or head back to my therapist for help working through it). I think this – social media envy – at least in part happens because those feelings – sadness, envy, fear of missing out – they’re so tangled up in the really deep stuff of who we are and what matters to us. Like, you want to be a great Jamie and great mom to Riley and great wife to Will and great all your other roles/identities, so it makes sense that your heart would kind of ache when it gets confronted by things that are different to the story/image/ideal that you have for those things. And it makes sense that you’d need to remind and keep on reminding yourself “I’m OK with my reality” because it really does take time to build (or strengthen up) those core beliefs, or set of images in your mind of “great mom”, or story of “our amazing lil family”. It’s hard!
Annemieke says
I defintely relate to not having many pictures of the first few months. Compared to how many pictures I take on a monthly basis versus then is a triple amount. And I also understand the envy. We tend to share our favorite pictures, of our kids behaving (and sometimes us bragging) and us being happy and all that. But we all know the reality is different. But it can be hard to see that when in ppd.
On days when Merijn is misbehaving I feel envy when I see others with their perfect pictures of their kids behaving in the stores and playgrounds, and I beat myself up as to why mine can’t be like that. But in reality he can be and theirs can be just as disobedient. I just don’t get to see that.
When I made a personal account for pics with Merijn I already knew I was not going to fit to a theme or that any of them were going to be the prettiest because lol, life with Merijn is running around all day. He is just that kind of a kid. He can’t sit or stand still long enough for most pictures, and that is okay. They show his personality.
Emily says
I have a lot of the same struggles with Instagram! I love the stories because you can be not quite as “staged” and just show snippets of life. I see some people’s feeds and they’re just SO PRETTY and I’m like “why can’t I take pictures like that? Why can’t I make my feed just as pretty?” But at the same time, I’m like “that’s not real life though.” So, I’m actually now trying to focus more on people who show actual photos of life. Yes, they can be beautiful and everything. But the Instagramers who just post quotes or something… I’m over it. I want to see life!
Katherine says
Thank you for your honesty! While I’m not a mom, I do struggle with Instagram envy, feeling like my life isn’t perfectly curated or instagramable all the time. But I still share because I want people to see what real life is like!
Vee Ramage says
I used to struggle with bookstagram, I’ll admit. I used to obsess over getting photos *just right* and keeping up with the major bookstagrammers really took a toll on me, though I never said it. I ended up quitting blogging and reading for a while because of it. When I came back the first thing I did was quit anything I used to do, and instagram was the first to go.
Vee @ Under The Mountain
Jae says
This was a great post and it’s so important to realize how fake things are on Instagram. I don’t think I really had a lot of Instagram envy, but recently I realized that a lot of people on social media who have that perfect feed, that is actually their job! Plus they have professional help to take pictures for them. So, no matter how much time we have in a day, no matter how clean our house is, we will never be able to get the same shot. They have better equipment, professional lighting, professional stylists, hair and makeup, etc. That is how they make money and it’s not real! Also, I’ve done the “vlogging” type thing when I’ve traveled just to share pictures and video with my friends. And it’s exhausting! You don’t really enjoy life I feel because you are constantly taking pictures and stressing about capturing things.
So, with these realizations, I’ve started to understand that it’s not real. Now, when I see photos like that, I can appreciate the beauty, but in the back of my mind I’m always aware of what went into a picture. If you see a pic of a mom walking down the street pushing her stroller, think to yourself, how did she take the picture? She didn’t just prop her iPhone on a ledge somewhere and set a timer to get a picture. It takes hundreds of shots to get that perfect one, so probably she has her team there, and they scheduled an outing, and her stylist put her together, and a professional photographer took hundreds of snaps. Keeping all that in mind helps keep things in perspective I’ve found. Not to mention, at the end of the day, all the likes, followers, and beautiful photos in your feed are not what bring joy and love into your life.
Jamie says
You bring up SUCH a good point..you are so right! A lot of those people have a team and better STUFF to produce it all. And I feel you…I feel like there’s such a line between fun and exhausting when you are trying to document life or trips for social media/a blog and it’s hard to find it. I want to be present in the moment but I also will find myself thinking oh HOW WOULD THIS BE FOR INSTA. God..I’m so glad I didn’t grow up with all this stuff haha. I have such a love/hate relationship with it all. A while ago I read about this mom blogger who talked about how fake it all was and how she would post a picture about her family grilling for Father’s Day yet the picture had been shot and staged weeks before and like during game night, which normally was sponsored by a company, she would constantly be thinking about this shot or this angle for the blog post or whatever rather than being in the moment. She eventually quit it all. The whole thing made me really sad honestly. Trying to remind myself of all this!! Thanks for such a thoughtful and insightful comment!
Tanea says
I’m super late but this is such a great post! I don’t have a baby but my life is not instagrammable. I work from home every day, I live in the suburbs, my home is dark and not nicely decorated, I just mostly work and blog. That’s really it. It’s so hard to watch people living exciting lives, being super creative with their feeds, and doing things I can only dream of doing. But I’m learning to shut down those thoughts whenever they start creeping in. Literally shut them down, by closing the app and pushing it out of my mind. I need to stay in comparison and competition with myself, and no one else. My life may not be glamorous now but like you said, this is my life right now and I have a lot to be thankful for. 🙂
Tizzy Brown says
I know how you feel, I get insta-envy from time to time as well. I struggle to take photos that look bright and fresh because I live in an old house in a country where the weather is always dull and I don’t have a swish modern apartment that looks good in photos. I also can’t afford a fancy camera, so I can never get beautiful close-ups. But remember that a lot of photos you see on Instagram are highly edited and people are selective about what they post. All of us mums have plenty of days where we stay in our pyjamas with no makeup on and we’re rushing around after a screaming toddler and frantically cleaning cat-sick off the carpet, but we’re not going to post a pic of that! Those are the real moments of motherhood and they matter so much more than looking polished and glamorous for selfies or taking beautiful pictures of our homes. Try not to compare yourself to others so much-you are doing great!