Are you a Pinterest worthy parent? Does Pinterest give you Pinsecurity?
Do you ever go on pinterest and wonder why you can’t be more like this or that? Wonder why you can’t oh! so effortlessly create, cook, organize, dress, craft or re-invent something? Pinterest has this way of making it seem like there is this next level. A level of doing all those daily grind parenting things like cooking, clothing, organizing, parties, crafts in advanced mode… you know, the stuff that makes you super mom, the most awesome parent on the block…pinterest worthy! I’ll tell you up front, I’m not super mom, a perfect parent and not “pinterest worthy”, I am okay with that and I’ll tell you why:
It’s not a competition. None of this parenting stuff or life for that matter, should be a competition because, damn it, parenting is far too hard and life is far too fleeting for us to be keeping points or upping the ante.
Sure there are so many thousands, millions even of posts on pinterest with some of the coolest stuff, made by really smart, creative, interesting people, but then I remind myself, those pictures are just moments, snap shots, they may be pictures but they are not necessarily the whole picture.
People have different skill sets, and can’t that be something to celebrate? I actually find it quite cool that we can use a tool to see all these different skills and ideas in one place. Some people happen to be really crafty, others can cook, some can sew, some can set up a children’s party effortlessly or organize a closet. I cannot do closest organization; I’m more of a pile person. I cannot do gardens, I let the weeds live too… I cannot do interior decorating but I try anyways…pinterest isn’t making this so, it’s just fact and so I’m cool with that.
I read a disclaimer on someone’s blog post directed at pinterest users that was excusing the fact that this awesome meal they had made wasn’t the most nutritionally sound. Isn’t it kind of sad that we have justify our creative process or fear the nasty remarks? What ever happened to just being nice…lets be nice!
If people are posting on pinterest only because they need to boost their esteem and show off their skills, well then hugs to them and thank you for sharing, maybe it will inspire me or make me want to learn something new. Trying something and learning will never go out of style in my book.
Just because what I make is simpler doesn’t make it less fun…like this project I saw on pinterest…totally awesome. Except, my kids did not want to wait to paint or tape the roads, they wanted to play right away…so we did. Pinterest version (celebrateeverydaywithme’s version to be accurate), totally cool. Our version…yeah, totally cool too (at least the kids think so and they are the ones playing!) If you don’t think so, please see above about the being nice part 🙂
Source: celebrateeverydaywithme.com via Nikki on Pinterest
I drool over some of the crafts on pinterest but our art projects here sometimes end up looking like goop and paint blobs reminiscent of poo (my son called it that himself and we giggled over it, because we are silly like that…) but I totally appreciate the amazing crafty mama’s out there making robots out of tin cans, egg cartons and glitter…oh wait, is that some glitter on my floor, right, we tried making some robots…didn’t work so well but we did have a lot of fun.
Source: thechocolatemuffintree.com via Brinn on Pinterest
Fun, learning, happiness, acceptance…I’m “pinning” those and trying to love life. How about you, what are you “pinning”? What are your skills? Are you pin worthy – I bet so!
Peace & Be Well,
Ariadne
Ariadne Brill