Facebook Mom Groups:Why I Deleted Them All!

I have always been one to join the cool mom groups on Facebook. You know the ones that have the million chic moms giving out the advice that worked for them but probably won't work for you. The ones that have discussions about vaccinations that never end well. Ya those are the mom groups I am talking about. Don't get me wrong there are many good reasons to use a mom group. I love the support that many groups give you. As well as the sometimes drama that keeps my boring days a little more interesting. Some people really need these kinds of support groups and many women have no where else to go for help.

Even for myself I found a time where having a place to vent to other people who get what I am going through to be very healing. However, what I have began to realize is that many of my face to face relationships struggle because of social media outlets like the many mom groups I was apart of.

Here is my conclusion about Mom support groups. Yes they can be helpful but I started to see tons of moms parenting so many different ways and tons of moms who thought my parenting style was wrong. I began to think maybe I wasn't a very good mom, like because I don't cater to my child's every need that I have to be a bad mom. I felt like I needed to post every question I had about being a parent and a new mom. I never let myself figure things out myself. I took so much advice it began to get out of hand. It felt like I wasn't really experiencing being a mom.

Think of it this way. You go to a concert, your favorite band or singer. Your super excited to get some pictures and videos. However you spend the whole night looking through your phone as you "watch" waiting for the perfect blurry picture. I used to do this until I realized I was losing the experience just to share a few cool pictures. That is how I felt while using mom groups. Like being a mom just wasn't as fun when I was searching for every "right" answer to my parenting problems. Lets get real here ladies... we are not going to ever find the right answer because by the time we think we have it there will be new and better research saying the other option is better.

I think that asking for help when your desperate is a good thing to do but I think there are other ways to figure it out. We have doctors and our intuition and so many other ways navigate our problems rather than relying on others to guide us in what they believe is the right direction for us.

I want to make decisions regarding my daughter and our relationship based off of what I want not what 50 mom think is more organic or blah blah. I am not sure where the race began to be the best mom cause I think we are all pretty great anyways. Its tiring enough having to decide anything at all let alone having a million other people judging why I decided to do something.

Maybe you haven't even thought about how social media is affecting your everyday life. Maybe it is time you start to. I know us moms and dads like to worry about everything we do and if its okay or not. What if there was no google, no groups of a thousand moms right at your finger tips.

What would you do? Could you survive?

Of course you can, humans have been surviving without the internet for many many years. It is possible and I think more people should learn to pull back from the internet unplug and see their true ability as parents, friends, wives, husbands. You don't need to validate why you are the way you are. We are all different, we have different stories sometimes its nice to share our stories but sometimes is a good idea to just live your story.

~Chaotic Momma~