Now that August is waning, social media users are bracing for the avalanche of back-to-school photos and mom posts about how children are adjusting to the school year. Kids may need more encouragement and affirmation this time of year, and it’s a prime time to snap pictures for posterity. But one thing mothers need less of is “sharenting.”
Over-sharing about home life doesn’t just risk annoying Facebook friends or embarrassing our children, but the problem can be challenging to see through our prevailing cultural dynamics. The moderate left gins up sympathy for mothers who are shamed online but doesn’t generally discourage sharenting; the right is quick to defend women’s role as nurturers but often neglects the benefits of private life, since social media is a primary battlefield of the culture wars.
Privacy in family life is not merely a matter of personal preference, though. Sharenting can inhibit mastery of the domestic sphere, which is far more than cooking, cleaning, and bedtime stories. It can keep mothers from truly embracing and enjoying their family and home life. We mothers do not have to constantly be at war with our domestic environment, in tension with prevailing cultural narratives, and in competition with other mothers. We can have a greater measure of peace and satisfaction if we just set down our phones.
It is easy for mothers in particular to exacerbate difficult seasons of life by continuing to broadcast their lives. Research shows more time online leads to more unhappiness, yet many mothers routinely
