The Importance of Community for Parents: Part I

“Why do parents share their personal stories on social media? Aren’t they opening themselves up for criticism and trolling?”

This is a question that I was asked by another parent. I had to think about that one for a bit because I, too, am not big into sharing a lot of personal details on social media. When I originally developed Run Tell Mom, the mission focused on sharing other parental experiences in an effort to build community and to strengthen connections between parents (both alike and unalike). I wanted each story to be a candid take on a parent’s personal experience, one that may resonate with another parent somewhere else in this virtual world. The more story spotlights I featured, the more inquiries I would get to share from another lens. I absolutely LOVED it because it felt like a community wanting to learn more about others, wanting to connect during an isolating, scary period of time when connection seemed like a distant reflection in the rearview mirror.

I felt like social media was becoming increasingly more divided and more contentious, so my solution was to cultivate a virtual social space for parents that felt collaborative, welcoming, and inclusive. I started collaborating with some amazing platforms: speaking with different mental health specialists, authors, doulas, keynote speakers, and healthcare providers on my platform and things just started making so much more sense to me. I was connecting with individuals whom I wished I met before welcoming my now 5yr old. I wanted a different type of support that focused on the parent and not solely on the child.

Following that recognition, I knew that I wanted to focus more on prevention, specifically for parental burnout & family planning. When I say family planning, I mean this in a very abstract sense: gathering resources for mental health support, locating parent & caregiver support groups, finding ways to eat healthy when you’re bone-deep exhausted, how to cross-train with your partner to achieve household equity, etc. In order for me to fulfill those tasks, I had to take more of a front seat approach and be the face in the videos, the Reels, the face not just the headshot. That made me feel uncomfortable because I try to keep my work life separate from private life. Keep in mind: the more you share, the more vulnerable you become to criticism and trolling.

I noticed that there were two strong, recurring themes throughout each collaboration and interview: the importance of social connection and belonging (and to be honest, it’s haaaaaard to authentically create that on social media).

Naively, I thought social media would be the most “natural” way to cultivate a sense of parental belonging- the convenience, the immediacy, and the massive reach that social media offers… it seemed like a no-brainer! It’s not that straightforward.

I’ve had conversations with other parents about how social media feels “competitive” or “harsh at the best of times”. It can feel a lot like high school for many of us: the like-for-like behavior, following popular accounts within one’s niche in order to get your top comments pinned for more platform viewership, interacting with other people whom are (most likely) complete strangers within comments. I stepped back and did my own case studies on the behaviors we all (maybe subconsciously) participate in on social media and I thought to myself “..am I doing this for ME alone or am I doing this to help other parents and caregivers?”

In what other environment are we saying stuff like “thank you for sharing” 10,000 times on another creator’s feed just to feel seen? For many, there is this inherent drive to gain more followers under the guise of calling it one’s community without thoughtfully cultivating feeling of actual community. It’s one thing to authentically support one’s account and their mission, but commenting just to generate traffic to our account for likes feels superficial and self-centered. And full disclosure- I speak from personal experience because I’ve participated in this and it feels yucky and unproductive.

So to answer the question “why does it feel competitive?”- the answer is two-prong.

1. Comparing oneself to the meticulously-edited feeds with clean homes, Pinterest-perfect curated lunches, mothers grinning ear-to-ear in family photos, all while tallying up one’s “like count” and comparing it to other platforms can negatively impact one’s view of self and alter your own definition of parenting success. How would the self-doubt trickle in? And why does it feel like we are competing against other parents in order to see a boost in vanity metrics? Because with every static grid post, every Reel, and every Live interview, there are metrics that are captured & displayed- the amount of likes you get, the views your Reels get, the amount of individuals that tune-into your Live discussion. Tethering your self-worth and personal growth to these vanity metrics can lead one to believe that they aren’t doing it right unless their metrics demonstrate increased numbers. So how do we cleave this? We stop focusing on the metrics as the sole measure of one’s self worth as a parent creator on social media. If your mission is to help parents, allow that to be the measurement of your platform’s success.

The other unpopular topic I am going to pull back the curtain on: why do we call people within our community “followers”?

It feels derogatory to call people “followers”, in fact when we were younger, being called a “follower” was considered derogatory. Certainly, they are “following” your content because they feel inspired by it or maybe it makes them feel seen, but to haphazardly label a group as a “following” places the those individuals on a lower hierarchical level than the content creator.

Think about any account that you follow that exceeds 50,000 people within that community. Imagine the content creator posts a static grid with some provocative statement on that static grid post. It’s like a tinderbox waiting for a sulfur-tipped match to spark a verbally combative debate within the comment section. Now, imagine that static grid post featured an opinion on motherhood- criticizing one’s parenting skills, food choices, or non-physical disciplinary actions. It can get emotionally-charged and pick up engagement speed REAL quick. Can this divide a community? Most certainly, yes. I am 1000% supportive of having an opinion and expressing it tactfully, but verbally attacking others on social media, and in many cases a person you’ve never met before, has its risks and the impact can linger on far beyond that virtual environment.

Maybe it’s a bit of a pipe dream, but I want parents to feel like the platforms they follow are really considering their mental wellbeing and internal point of view, not just their own vanity metrics or posting something purposefully antagonistic in order to grow their own account.

I hope you hang here with me while I slowly start to spin my wheels on this new endeavor. I want you to feel welcomed and empowered here. I also want you to know that I cover some tough topics, so please be kind in the comments- we don’t know what other people are going through, but we know that we want to feel like we belong, like we are seen, and like we have a real community looking after us in a way that feels authentic and supportive.

Stay tuned for Part II,

-Shelley

Founder of @ParentSuitcase on Instagram and @RunTellMom on Instagram

Pinterest: here!