There has been a thought on my mind recently about motherhood. Every day my Instagram and Facebook feeds parade photos of baby-bumps, newborns, and toddlers, creating the newest generation of children that are on social media from their first breaths. This has been a new idea for me, so I asked Kenzie Mitchell, one of my favorite blog mommas, to share her thoughts on sharing her little one's life with her online community.
"From the time I was sixteen weeks pregnant with my daughter, everything about her was exposed for all the world to see. I would write about the things she was making me crave, about how my body was feeling that day, about different symptoms and about what God was teaching me and showing me through this precious human. I took photos of my maternity style, and would post about it at least once a week. At first, only people I knew were reading my site. Then it began to grow. And soon enough people would comment, email and connect with me that I didn't know, they watched my bump grow and grow, they heard my thoughts as I waited paitently for her and they even saw me the day I was breathing through contractions and wasn't sure if it was 'real' labor. (It was, you can see that post here). And then we annouced her name over Instagram and people rejoiced with us.
"Each day I posted a new photo to my social media of this beautiful gift God had given to us. And anyone who wants to watches her grow, learns her likes and dislikes and follows along on our journey as parents. But I don't share everything. We have really hard days. Even now as I write this post, I have Maxine sitting on my lap, refusing to nap, reaching for my key board and trying to drink my coffee. The reality of my day is I'm late on a number of guest posts, I work in a few hours and my eight month old wants to do everything she sees her mom doing. As grateful as I am, this day and these circumstances are not easy for me. If you were to see a Instagram post of mine, or read a blog post, you would guess otherwise. I don't want it to seem like I have it all together, and I do have really real moments over my blog (like this one), but I never want my writing to reflect anything less than joy, gratitude and faith. I never want my Maxine to go back and read about her childhood from her mother's perspective and it and think that she made it hard for me. I want her to know the blessing she is, and I want everyone else to know the same thing. This is my way of using discretion.
My perspective changes when I write. The day could be down right lame, but as I write, faith is increased. The Lord ministers to me in those moments, and I hope others are ministerd to as the over flow in one way or another. I hope and pray that as people read my journey in parenthood it encourages people in knowing that hard moments never outweigh the amazing and incredible gift that children are.
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