Parenthood: Moving Beyond Facebook Envy to Reality

Brittany Tuttle, guest blogger
Kids%20screaming.jpgOver Christmas break, I became obsessed with the idea that I wanted another baby even though my soul knew this to be untrue.

I did not want another baby, but I'd read a blog that made me think I did. On the blog, a woman had described her birth story as an experience so spiritual it bordered on holy. A process that strengthened the bonds between herself, her husband, and God. 
And here sat I, knowing full well that birth for me had never strengthened my bond to anyone but my anesthesiologist and Preparation H.

Her idealized description of giving birth had confused me so much that it led me to believe I wanted things that I didn't actually want.

In short, it made me jealous.

It wasn't an isolated occurrence. Countless times I've logged onto Facebook, Twitter, or my favorite blogs only to see vintage-filtered vignettes of other people's seemingly perfect lives. There are my friends, on tropical vacation (again). There are my favorite bloggers, wearing artsy duds, sitting in their homes that look like exact replications of the Anthropologie catalog. And there are their children, perpetually glossy-haired and rosy-cheeked and smiling.

Meanwhile, here I sit in my untidy home in the cold of January, wearing an old college t-shirt. My kids are fighting in the background. Reading these blogs, seeing these profiles, often feels like browsing a fashion magazine. It's fun to look at, but afterward I feel inferior and inadequate and ugly and fat. 

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