Dear Pinterest Mom,
No, no — don’t worry — it’s OK. I’m not going to lay into you. In fact, some of my best friends are Pinterest moms, and I love them for it. I am not a Pinterest mom, as you may have guessed. But if you’re cool with me, I’m cool with you.
You’ve gotten a lot of crap lately, just for being awesome. You love a good craft project, you bake like a fiend, and you tackle some of the more tedious aspects of parenting with a joie de vivre normally reserved for a catnip-high kitten doing backflips through a field of yarn balls and tuna fish. You go with your bad self. High five.
Moms like me who, ya know, don’t? We can be a little sensitive. We see your perfect seven-layer ROY G BIV gradient cake atop a stand with a hand-sewn puffy cloud cakestand skirt and spun sugar raindrops falling from the sky to complete the vignette. Sure, we love a good “first rainstorm of the school year” party (seriously — how did you come up with that?), but we can’t help but be acutely aware that we are… not.
I think the misconception that plagues us and that creates this “Pinterest Moms versus Non-Pinterest Moms” dichotomy is the assumption that you are judging us for our Costco cakes and thrown together Dollar Store party decorations, or that you presume that because we don’t Pinterest it up, we aren’t capable of Pinteresting it up. But I don’t think you think that. I think you just really like doing artsy-fartsy stuff.
I legitimately don’t aspire to be a Pinterest Mom. It’s just not within the realm of my reality. I love throwing parties, and on occasion I’ll bust out something crafty and creative for my kiddos. But the vast majority of my physical and cognitive energy is expended on just keeping these little punks alive. I’m wildly impressed with myself when they’ve eaten an applesauce pouch in a day, let alone a series of organic cucumber and broccoli sculptural frogs wearing tomato skin tutus and corn-kernel Bolshevik hats.
And if I thought you were judging me for that, I’d probably get a little snarky about those nutritious Russian frogs. But I don’t think you are. I think you just really like making vegetable amphibians, and for that I applaud you.
I understand the inclination to get snotty about the moms we perceive to be out-momming us in Pinterest-related endeavors. It stinks to feel outdone, and human nature is to rationalize that feeling by blaming someone else’s perceived advantages (she has more time, more money, fewer kids, freakish manual dexterity, etc.) or their perceived inadequacies (she barely interacts with her kids ’cause she’s always hand-making flocking for her Christmas wonderland display, etc.) But, ew. The circle of judging is just not helping anyone, and we all have way better things to do. I’m happy that you found your “thing,” and lucky me that I get to enjoy the fruits of it sometimes! Thanks, pal.
So you wave that hand-stitched, hand-dyed, quilted, embroidered, bedazzled flag, my Pinterest Mom friend. And when you see that look on my face as I survey your bounty of homemade gloriousness, know that’s not judgment or criticism. That’s wonderment and pride in you for what you’ve made, as well as a big helping of gratitude for you sharing what you’ve made with me.
Because you know damn well I’m taking a slice of that cake.
