Does your kitchen look like this in the background of your Instagram pictures? Is your hair curled into beachy waves in those pictures? What about your kids: are they wearing matching outfits?
There’s a caption on your photos. Does it say something about how it’s been a hectic day but you’re glad to be home with those sweet little children and there’s nowhere else you’d rather be?
Full stop.
You spent two hours minimum just preparing your house, self and kids for each meticulously-filtered Instagram photo and we know it.
No mom without a live-in housekeeper and round-the-clock nanny has a kitchen like that. I mean, really, where are the dripping art projects and stacks of bills? Dishes done, huh? Those freshly-baked cookies on the plate are a nice touch.
There must be a hiding place just off camera for the snacks you’re bribing your kids with to stop smacking each other long enough to pose for a photo.
Not to mention that trendy outfit and perfectly slouchy hat on you. It all fits just-so around your lean yet fit frame. No leftover Lunchables for you, clearly. No visible blood coming out of your ears from the sound of “Mom” for the 327th time that day.
A+ work on getting out of the sweats, my friend, but this just isn’t reality.
With the filter off, life right now is chaotic on its best days. We’re all trying to do some semblance of homeschool and probably juggling working from home too. We’re striving for keeping our kids from killing each other and clinging to a shred of sanity and optimism.
Video work meetings with kids at home are a joke.
Jobs have been lost, businesses are struggling, and people are seriously ill.
This is the reality of life in these times, and there’s no filter fancy enough to mask that.
So keep your shiny white kitchen. The rest of us will get by with our overgrown roots, frayed tempers, haphazard homeschool routines and messy-ass kitchens.
Samantha Scroggin, Walking Outside in Slippers 