Millennial-Driven “Relatable” Content Is Why Motherhood Looks Undesirable

Her hair is matted down with grease, thrown into a purposefully chaotic messy bun, stale spit-up has marked a permanent spot on her worn-in hoodie.

And predictably, she’s crying to the camera about how “no one talks about” this difficult part of motherhood.

The video has garnered millions of views, and the comments section is filled with remarks like “You’re so brave, mama!” Sound familiar? That’s because millennials have spent the past 10 years building entire empires on this type of “relatable” content.

The Rise of “Relatable”

When Instagram first launched, aspirational content was the norm. Rich models traveling the world, the aesthetic flat lay, the color-coded Instagram feed. Many grew sick of seeing such “perfect” lives and understandably felt that their real life couldn’t match up to what they were seeing in these uber-curated squares. Then, as things do, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction.

The first few women who dared to show their messy home, tell the true story “behind the shot,” and share their very relatable struggles were praised to the heavens. They truly were trailblazers in the social media world, and they were rewarded heavily for their authenticity. Others witnessed their success, and eventually, it became the norm. It became so popular that sharing the positive aspects of someone’s life on social media somehow came to be fake and forced (no matter how very real), while crying on live-stream, sharing snapshots of a cluttered kitchen with dishes practically tumbling from the sink, was deemed “authentic.”

You may be reading this and thinking to yourself, “Well, that is authentic. My living room really is a mess, and I’ve been up since 3 a.m. with a fussy baby, and I am so tired I could cry.” And sure, that may be the case, as I know it has been for me many times, but since when has it become okay to air all of your grievances to hundreds, sometimes millions of strangers online? Why can’t we cry in the privacy of our own homes anymore without propping up our phone at the perfect angle and hitting “record”? Why can’t we call up our mom or our best friend and vent to them instead and ask for genuine support? When did it become normal to monetize our pain? When did it become the only thing “worthy” of sharing online?

Ironically, "Relatable" Produces Resentment and Fear

While sharing the struggles of motherhood online may sound great for “breaking down stigmas” surrounding the realities of being pregnant, raising children, and postpartum depression, it has ultimately had a lasting impact on women that is anything but positive. Many women are now terrified of becoming mothers, and understandably so. It looks awful: Pregnant women recording themselves puking violently into paper bags in the car and screaming at their husbands, “You did this to me!” New moms filming themselves and their one-week-old babies throughout the night to show how exhausted they are, waking up every few hours to breastfeed. Experienced moms trudging through toddlerhood filming their child having a meltdown in public or smearing poop on the walls. It’s not only inexplicably wrong for these children to have a permanent imprint on the internet in this way without their consent, but it gives an attitude of resentment toward motherhood as a whole.

When I was pregnant, I was bombarded with videos and posts about women having horrific birth experiences, tragic miscarriages, even stillbirth stories. Despite having healthy, fairly uncomplicated pregnancies myself, I was terrified by these experiences becoming my own. I was almost convinced that it would happen to me because it seemed like it happened to every other pregnant woman I followed online. The statistics were overwhelming – at least, that’s what my algorithm made it seem like. It got so bad in my third trimester after listening to these stories that I could hardly sleep. Every time I would wake up in the middle of the night, I was convinced that I was losing our precious child. The fear alone brought me to tears countless times and filled my days with anxiety rather than joy.

This concept extends far beyond just Instagram though. It has leaked into movies, TV shows, even podcasts. Tell me if this sounds familiar: Every podcast intro these days has some version of the host promising to “share the real, unfiltered truth.” Oftentimes, it’s women “normalizing” toxic motherhood habits like smoking weed while pregnant or screaming at their baby for waking up too early – all in the name of making other moms feel “less alone” (a.k.a. less guilty for bad behavior). Did we ever stop and consider that stigmas and shame were created, or that we were conditioned to have a filter, for a reason? Not every proverbial fart we have needs to be shared with the world or “normalized” for the sake of making everyone feel “seen.”

Inspire Me with Aspirational Motherhood Content

You know what I think is genuinely “brave” these days on social media? Putting out content that is uplifting, beautiful, and aspirational. Content that helps us reframe our mindset and focus on the positive aspects of what motherhood can be.

Just look at Nara Smith. She is a mother of two (with a third on the way), and no doubt has difficult moments throughout her days, regardless of how much help she may have or how much her husband makes each year, and yet, she is dressed impeccably, making meals from scratch to feed her family. She’s even bringing in income herself by sharing her content online, modeling in editorial shoots, and running her substack.

What’s wrong with this, you ask? Well, take one look at her comments, and you’ll see that women online are infuriated by her videos. They feel like her putting on a pretty dress, doing her hair and makeup, and crafting a lovely meal from scratch is a direct attack on them. They can’t do it, so surely, Nara Smith doing these things is an unforgivable insult. It’s the same case for why women online hate Hannah from Ballerina Farm so much.

And listen, I get the jealousy. Would I love to get all dolled up in a designer dress and bake cinnamon rolls from scratch while my husband is supporting us with millions in the bank? Duh. That’s not my reality, but I don’t hate Nara or Hannah because it’s theirs. It’s simply inspiring to me. I think we’re insulting women’s intelligence by saying that these rich influencers are “selling a false reality” to their audiences – as if we normies are just too dumb to know what motherhood looks like for the majority of people, as if we have never been around a mom with children.

I may not be able to quit my job and become a homesteader right now, but I can take parts of their days and weave them into my life, and that is genuinely inspiring to me. Traditional, heartwarming motherhood is not confined only to the rich. I can slip on a pretty dress instead of ratty old sweats to show off my beautiful bump, even if it costs me $20 instead of $2,000. I can try a new lasagna recipe after work to impress the man I love, even if I’m not making my noodles from scratch with an expensive Imperia machine. I can try to keep my home tidy and welcoming as a safe space for my kids, rather than throwing my hands up in defeat of an uncared for abode, even if it’s a two-bedroom rather than a penthouse suite. Maybe someday I will be in the kitchen, consumed by the smells of homemade noodles, wearing a silk Ferragamo dress, teaching my children to cook right alongside me. At least, that’s a goal I can work toward. At least they make it look appealing.

Nara and Hannah, and some others, are showing us that we can still take care of ourselves as human beings despite also loving motherhood. We can still strive to be a hot mom while embracing being the caretaker of the household and supporting our husbands without getting totally overwhelmed and accepting a victim mentality. These influencers are making motherhood look beautiful, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Motherhood is beautiful. Sure, like anything else, it is also difficult. Any mother will tell you, though, despite the challenges, it’s still worth it. It’s still the best thing they’ve ever done, bar none. So, why doesn’t this seem like the case online?

My point is: We’ve lost the plot. Not every single person we follow online needs to be relatable to us. That would be like surrounding yourself with people in real life who are only doing the same or worse than you. Spending time with the slob who sits on his mom’s couch and drones on about how unfair life is while staying at his dead-end job or hanging out with the girl friend of yours who is constantly complaining about everything her husband does wrong, from the dishes to what’s going on in the bedroom, without actually talking to him about it – what result do you think you’re going to get if you’re surrounded by people like this? You have no one to look up to, no one to aspire to become, no role model who motivates you to continue growing, to do better. We’re not meant to live in an echo chamber with only people who make us feel comfy by sharing our same beliefs, validating our feelings, and confirming our insecurities.

If you truly want to relate to others and discuss the difficult parts of motherhood in a productive and healthy way, that’s what your community is for. Your real friends and family. I guarantee that you’re not going to go through pregnancy and motherhood these days without being aware of what the potential dangers and drawbacks entail. If your mother or grandmother or friends aren’t telling you themselves, you’ll read about the realities in countless parenting books and hear about potential complications at various doctors’ appointments. We’re not heading into motherhood blind these days. Discuss these things with people who have your best interests at heart, not strangers on the internet in the hopes to get as many clicks, comments, and shares as possible. Ironically, I find this type of “relatable” content today extremely inauthentic. It’s cringey at best and downright damaging at worst.

Closing Thoughts

It’s okay to talk about the difficult parts of motherhood in an effort to be honest, but we’ve got to stop being so one-dimensional. If you’re going to detail every negative pregnancy and motherhood experience you’ve had in favor of “full transparency,” you should be sharing the positive parts just as willingly. And at least, if you’re going to fall prey to this trope on social media, stop fooling yourself into believing that you’re the only one talking about it. I’m so sick of hearing “no one talks about x,y,z” because the truth is that everyone talks about the negative parts of motherhood these days. Oftentimes, it feels like that’s the only thing moms online want to discuss. We wonder why the younger generation doesn’t want to have kids, why our marriage and birth rates are plummeting, and the truth is that we have to look in the mirror and accept at least some of that blame. We’ve made it look miserable.