Motherhood, with its sleepless nights, tantrums, and the constant sense that your body, time and mind are no longer your own, is hard. Nobody can deny that it’s often exhausting, relentless and overwhelming.
But then there’s the other extreme. The perfectly curated Instagram feeds of wonderfully happy families, elaborate first birthday parties, and memory-making in far-flung places. We’ve come to believe that this is where joy lies; in the big experiences that must be portrayed perfectly on social media, even if the reality was a meltdown on the Tube or a poonami explosion halfway through lunch.
As any mum will tell you, these big moments aren’t always joy-filled. Joy is often found in the smaller moments like your baby’s first gummy grin or their little fingers curling around your finger, or a stroke on the hand as they’re falling asleep.
#MoreJoyMotherhood
Social networking app, Peanut, has launched a campaign to highlight those moments, to cut out the noise of what seems to be either ‘parenting is so hard’ or ‘perfect parenting’. It’s calling on mums everywhere to share their moments of joy to show that these can be found in amongst the chaos of everyday life.
Their research found that 84% of mothers want to see a more truthful, balanced depiction of parenthood - one that moves away from the extremes of curated perfection or overwhelming negativity often seen on social media. Almost 5,000 women spoke to Peanut about their experiences and it was the simplest moments that sparked the most joy in motherhood, with morning cuddles, spontaneous laughter, and watching their children develop new skills bringing joy rather than highly curated or expensive “memory making”.
As one mum, Sophie, says, “I have fallen into the trap multiple times and from the moment my children were born, of ‘make it count, make it the best’.” She goes onto say, “but, more and more, I’m drawing on simple pleasures, walks to the park, kicking leaves in welly boots.”
She’s not alone. Peanut found that 97% of women feel that the joy of motherhood lies in the small, intimate moments and this campaign aims to shine a light on those snapshots of unfiltered joy.
Which mum are you?
It can feel isolating when the image of parenting you see online doesn’t match with your own. As the campaign points out, TV and media often shows us three types of mum – Power Mum, Perfect stay-at-home mum, and Hot Mess mum. As mum, Nisha points out “Either mothers are a bumbling mess who can’t keep it together, or a deeply aspirational working mother who appears to have it all but in reality is outsourcing it all and has wealth and means to do so beyond anything most people have. And then of course the trad wide creeping in!”
But what if you don’t fit neatly into one of these boxes? And with motherhood often being shown as two ends of a spectrum – the painful and the polished – while most mums’ experiences sit somewhere in-between, it can compound the loneliness so many mums feel. To help create a more balanced, inclusive picture, Peanut is asking mums to share their moments of joy on social media with #morejoymotherhood, to shift the conversation on motherhood and acknowledge that it’s complicated, but that it is joyful, with that joy often found in unfiltered moments.
Founder and CEO of Peanut, Michelle Kennedy said “it’s time to stop adding to the mental load of mothers with unrealistic ideals and impossible standards. Instead, we should celebrate their daily victories and work together to create the changes necessary to support future generations of mothers.”
Particularly in the run up to Christmas, when we can often put even more pressure on ourselves to create idyllic memories and add to the mental load, this campaign is a way of stepping back and finding the joy in the little things, celebrating small wins, and trying to stop, notice, appreciate, and share the joy in the everyday.
Find out more about More Joy Motherhood and share your #morejoymotherhood moments @peanut.
Rebecca Lancaster is a Digital Writer for Mother&Baby, drawing on ten years of parenting her two children to help others navigating their own parenting journey. As a freelance writer, she spent ten years working with leading lifestyle brands, from travel companies to food and drink start-ups, and writing everything from hotel reviews to guides to the best British cheeses. She’s particularly interested in travel and introducing her children to the excitement of visiting new places, trying different foods (less successfully) and experiencing different cultures.