5 Reasons You (Maybe) Should Stop Reading Mommy Blogs

Full disclosure: I love mommy blogs. If I didn’t have to work, I’d probably spend my baby’s naptime clicking through all of the prettiest, shiniest, most aspirational mommy blogs there are. Seriously, I love them. I find them incredibly inspiring.

But if I’m telling the truth, as in the whole truth so help me God? I also find them terrifying. When I’m through at my laptop and I turn around to look into my own living room or kitchen or bedroom and what I see there is NOT pretty, shiny, or anything to aspire to, it can get me down. Sometimes I even need to take a break from reading my favorites. Here’s why:

They can be DEmotivational

The popularity of Pinterest suggests that we should all be massively inspired by the blogging mamas who are doing it all and then some on the craft, décor, enrichment, and style fronts, but all that perfection may actually get in the way of productivity. Why bother even trying? You’re not going to spend precious time and energy on some pin-worthy project when you’re pretty sure it’ll never be as good as the pin.

You can never measure up

Suddenly you’re wondering why you’re so untalented, lazy, unstylish, etc. If they can do it, why can’t you? The answer is complex. Some of the top mommy bloggers have big help from sponsors. Some have kids that are super independent. Some probably have family lives that suffer because of the energy that gets poured into their blogs. Some have a passion for one thing and moved past the novice stage years before they had kids. You just don’t know.

The blog life is not real life

Here’s why you can’t measure up… A mommy blog is not the sum total of a life. It’s a shiny, happy highlight reel of the best moments, the best thoughts and feelings, and the best pictures. Some bloggers can get pretty raw and real but even then you have to remember that you’re not witnessing life in real-time.

It’s a one-way connection

You may have mommy friends who blog, but that’s entirely different than feeling like mommy bloggers are your friends. But, boy, they do make it easy. They sign their posts with hugs and kisses and hearts and ask you how your day went – respond in the comments! – and say they’ll miss you while they’re at this or that blogging or design conference. But unless you’ve cultivated a real relationship, that’s marketing.

No matter what you do it’ll never feel like enough

You are one mama – your ten favorite mommy bloggers are ten mamas, each with a different area of expertise. But when you’re reading their blogs it can be easy to forget that no one is asking you to be ten mamas in one. Gourmet cook. Fashionista. Epic homeschooler. Perfect wife. Ultra perfect mother. Party planner. DIYer. Seamstress. You get the idea.

Please don’t think I’m suggesting that mommy bloggers are bad or that mommy blogs are bad or that you shouldn’t read mommy blogs! I keep a blog and I’d be honored if you’d check it out. What I am trying to say is that if reading mommy blogs is stressing you out instead of making you smile, take a breather. Put your blog reading on hold for a week or a month and see whether you feel better about your own mothering when you’re not comparing yourself to another mom’s highlight reel.

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