We all may know how I feel about selfies. Right? Actually, if you type in “Slutty Instagram Selfies” into google, my blog tops the page. This is my most visited blog post ever.
Now that I’m a parent, I have a new perspective on selfies. I still hate them just as much because I find them to be way too self-involved. I know. I have a blog. And all I write about is myself. I get it. I’m actually pretty self-involved too. (Though I never post the link to this blog anywhere and most people don’t even know that I have one. And I like it that way.)
Let me talk clarify something here though before I delve into my real post here.
I don’t hate selfies of you traveling. I don’t hate selfies of you at the gym when you run an active lifestyle account. I don’t hate selfies in your outfits if you’re a fashion blogger. You’re “branding” yourself. And if you get paid for this? Then get it, girl. If you get paid to post pictures of yourself, then post away! Ain’t no shame in making a living!
My problem is with this scenario: I follow a girl I used to go to the gym with. She has a pre-teen daughter and a very young teen daughter (I believe her kids are around 9 and 12). She posts selfies with her daughter nonstop. She posts pictures of them at the gym. Them in the car. Them eating food. Her daughter sleeping. Her daughter eating. Her daughter dressed up. My old gym friend posts the same photos of herself. She also likes to post pictures of her husband who she loves sooooo much and of them dressed up for their dates and soooo in love, yet I know for a fact that they’ve had affairs, that he says he doesn’t love her and only married her because they got pregnant. Fine. All marriages aren’t perfect. We don’t post the bad stuff all over, right?! Of course not. I don’t even post on my FB or IG about how I wanted to abort my unborn child because I was convinced Jon and I would get divorced.
My problem is not that we are hiding the bad and only sharing the good. Although, I do think there is a difference in not broadcasting the bad stuff in your life and then trying to sugarcoat your life and making a serious effort to make it appear perfect. But that’s another post all together.
My problem is that adults are involving their teenage children in posting every aspect of their life on social media. My problem is that you are teaching your daughter to post pictures of herself working out, at breakfast, while she’s sleeping, while she’s doing homework, while you guys are dressed up in the car, while you’re “not wearing make up” in the car…
What kind of message is this teaching our children today? To focus on ourselves. To get validation from social media. That every aspect of our day needs to be posted for everybody else to see.
I hate the focus of today’s youth. It makes me sad that this is the world Jackson has to grow up in. Jon and I discussed not even having kids because we felt it wasn’t right to unwillingly bring any person into this world today.
I truly think kids today are more depressed, more self-involved, and more entitled because that’s how they’re raised. They want instant gratification and then they want all their friends to see it online. And adults who post all this stuff of their kids online just perpetuate the situation.
I post pictures of my kid. We take selfies together sometimes and sometimes, I even post them. I don’t even care if you post the occasional picture of your kid at the gym because hey, parents are proud! We like to see our kids grow and accomplish things! But it’s the manner in which they are done. It’s the frequency of it. Do we need to see selfies of you and your kid EVERY day?
I hope that parents truly think about their actions and how they are raising their children. After working with kids in the ER, I see family dynamics and how much parents affect their kid’s attitudes. The impact parents make is undeniable and it is huge. If you’re taking selfies with your kid all day long and then posting them on social media, you better believe you are affecting your child and how they view themselves and how they view social media. You’re instilling values, and sometimes these future values might just be about how they are viewed on social media. Isn’t that sad? Let’s get our value from what we do without having to broadcast it all on social media.