About a year ago I had a few people tell me that they were envious of my life. It really took me by surprise and left me a bit speechless. I thought "Seriously, look at me. Look at my life. Really… I mean REALLY… you wish your life was like this?!!"
But then I realized that most people gain their perspective of my life by what they see on Facebook. They see a picture of me and the kids all smiling on our little family movie night and think.. "I wish we did family nights like Christina's family." What they don't realize is that the kids might have… ok… probably did… fight during half the outing!! I probably ended up loosing my cool with them and yelled at them a few times… and that picture you saw of them with their arms around each other was staged. Yes staged. I told them to put their arms around each other or they wouldn't get any candy during the movie. I put the picture through a few filters.. blurred out the kid pitching a fit… to create a picture perfect family movie night. I delete the 20 other photos that show traces of the tension we had that evening and proceed to post the leave it to beaver photo on Facebook. Don't judge me. You know you do it too ;)
Here are some examples
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| Reality: Easter Morning |
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| Facebook caption (picture taken with the screaming baby slid behind me): "Easter morning fun!" |
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| Reality: Birthday message to grandma |
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| Facebook caption: "Happy birthday grandma… We love you! ~ Quinton, Carter, & Kydon" |
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| Reality: Fighting over the dough the entire time we made Christmas cookies |
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Facebook caption (after removing 2 children from the shot):
"Making homemade Christmas cookies with the family #family#traditions#fun" |
Now don't get me wrong. I don't think we need to put all our dirty laundry on Facebook. We all know that person whose statuses cryptically seek pity or affirmation. I think we need to keep our lives real (don't paint it out to be something that it is not) and just realize that on Facebook we are only seeing each other at their best.
Moral: Don't let Facebook form your perception of others' lives ;)
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