Comparison is the thief of joy. Unfortunately, it is hard not to compare yourself to content creators on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Those creators with the perfectly manicured homes, perfectly behaved children dressed in Van Trappe-esque matching clothes, playing peacefully in the living room. What is hard to remember is that we only see the A-Side of people’s lives on social media.
My life is far from perfectly manicured, and my older son never plays quietly. He is very loud when he’s on Minecraft with his friends, and my six-month-old acts like he’s being tortured if he’s placed in his crib for too long. If you don’t snap my six-month-old into his bouncy chair, he tries to get out. My house goes too long in between cleanings and some rooms get nearly ignored.
In an effort to stay real and transparent, my house is a mess. Our master bathroom doens’t get too messy except for the laundry pile. My husband is a Hazmat trucker; he drives diesel trucks, so he comes home with diesel all over him and showers daily. Our laundry room is tiny, and unfortunately, there is a closet right behind the door, which prevents it from opening fully, making it feel even smaller. We currently keep the litter boxes for our four cats in the room where we keep our Tupperware and non-perishable food. The pantry is my older son’s responsibility; however, as a teen, he does the teen thing and does the least amount of effort to get that chore done. I am going to be deep cleaning the pantry later to get it ready for our new refrigerator that comes on Saturday. Tomorrow is trash day, so I collected all the bags upstairs so they make it in the big outdoor can before my older son takes it to the pick up stop.
We have plans to build a small cat on the back side of our laundry room because there is an existing concrete pad behind the door in the picture. Once that happens, I am going to deep clean the pantry a second time to prepare it for the renovations that we have planned for that room.
I am a real person, with real kids, and real pets. My house gets messy, my kids aren’t quiet, and my older kid isn’t always neat either. I already suffer from depression, so I have to remind myself daily that the family creators with perfect homes don’t always have perfect homes and probably spend time cleaning their homes in preparation to film several videos of their “perfect” families. You have to remind yourself that they are only showing you the A-side of their lives and not the B-side, not the side that is the day-to-day reality.
Leave a Reply