Is your Facebook feed rampant with the baby photos posted by the new moms? The latest research has revealed that the obnoxiously high number of baby photos corresponds to their insecurities about parenting.
The experts regard the baby photos as a search of approval of their peer group to reassure themselves that they are doing a good job of being a mother. The study published in the Sex Roles claims that the parents who post numerous pictures of their kids on Facebook might be battling depression. However, their symptoms may get worse if they are not offered the reassurance that they seek from their peer group on social media.
The study includes a survey poll consisting of 127 new moms, most of whom were quite educated, working mothers. The study indicated that the mothers who inundated the Facebook feed with images of their adorable babies just meant to seek approval of their parenting approach.
These women feel stressed to prove their worth as a perfect mom and want to use the social media to this end. Schoppe-Sullivan, a professor of human sciences at Ohio State University, said that there is nothing wrong with seeking approval of your friends. However, she warns us that the excess of everything is bad, and the same goes for those who rely too much on social media:
“I think that people use social media to seek validation for lots of things — appearance, careers, romantic relationships. Motherhood is such a socially valued role that it makes sense that new mothers would want to be recognized as good mothers. But whenever you seek validation, you may not get enough of it, thus setting you up to feel worse.”
The mothers who posted more pictures of their babies seemed to have prepared their minds for their incompetence at motherhood as early as the third trimester into their pregnancy. The fact remains that the society has unbearably burdened the new mothers with exceptionally high expectations for parenting.
Sarah pointed out that to their credit, all working mothers had sought approval of their parenting techniques over any other goals of their life which shows their commitment to becoming a good parent.
“These are not stay-at-home moms in our study. They have jobs outside the home that can also provide validation, which makes our results even more interesting. They have other successes to point to for validation.”
The society needs to re-think its role in making these women feel oppressed to be a good parent. If anything, a stressed mother is the last thing a child needs.