I’ve been grazing Instagram a lot lately and I have to admit that I like this social media platform. I post almost every other day and most of my content has to do with motherhood, D, and now that I’m home, snippets of our garden, my grandparents, and some glorious food which I don’t have to cook. Most of what I share are happy frames and the ones that are not so happy are usually disguised as light-hearted posts.
However, a few days back I found myself in a really dark space and I did something I’ve never done before: I vented on Instagram. I am a private person and I generally don’t like the idea of sharing too much information online but this time I was so lost and helpless that I had no second thoughts about honestly expressing how I was feeling. I got plenty of very thoughtful and supportive messages from friends and people I barely know and it made me feel secure. M completely disapproves of me doing this though. He believes that certain things are best left unsaid when it comes to social media and his view is that it’d soon become an obsession and you’d feel the compulsion to share every trivial detail of your life on a public platform. I agree with him to an extent considering I’m just as guarded about posting stuff online. Yesterday, for instance, I took down a story because M insisted it was showing D in bad light. I thought it was a funny post – irreverent but funny, nonetheless- about D’s sleepless nights but M said I was being harsh on D and it’s not ok to complain about our kid like that. Had a major argument with him and eventually deleted the story.
By now, it’s well established that Instagram holds an unswerving power over our relationship. Especially now that we’re in different cities temporarily, the stress gets to us: to me, more than anyone else. And I’m already plotting sweet revenge when I get back to Hyderabad: determined to go out and explore the city alone while leaving D with M all day. Anyway, the question is: why am I on Instagram?
The answers are multi layered. For one, I like the Instagram community, now that I’m a mom. Earlier I’d just post travel pictures and get on with my life. But now, I’ve discovered Instagram moms! I follow a lot of them for their absolute honesty, humour and no nonsense approach to parenting, for keeping it real, for normalising a lot of things like breastfeeding, postpartum depression and the hellhole that motherhood is, at times. No judgments. I also follow moms for book reccos, fun activities, toddler food ideas, and so on. More than anything there’s a sense of camaraderie, a feeling that we’re all in this together, our experiences matter and the anger, rage, irritation we feel as mothers is normal.
Secondly, I don’t have many mom friends. And I live in a quiet part of town that’s very far from where a couple of my only friends in the city live. I do not have friends in the building I live in or in the vicinity. So it’s a rather lonely journey with me staying holed up with D all day long in the flat except for walks in the park in the morning and evening. Instagram on the other hand is home to plenty of moms, most of whom I want to connect with and be friends with in real life. So I live in that little bubble when I’m home, exhausted and a little lonely.
Do I want to document my journey and D’s on Instagram? Not really. I quite enjoy sharing snippets every now and then but I’m not comfortable with the idea of flooding my page with personal photos. I used to deride moms who can’t stop sharing pics of their little ones but I kind of get where they come from, and I enjoy reading their posts so it’s all cool. Instagram captions are the new blogs, it seems like. I’m still pretty old fashioned though and prefer writing long winding articles here to posting lengthy Instagram captions. This is my safe space.
Why do I spend so much time on Instagram? The response to this is plain boring: i cannot leave D alone even when she’s asleep ( here our bedroom is upstairs so I have to be with her) during the day or night. By now you know that my little peanut hates sleeping and i have to draw the curtains to make the room pitch dark. It’s too dark to read a book. So my phone is my friend! Instagram to the rescue. Or Netflix on mute with subtitles.
One of my favourite things about Instagram is that it has helped me discover some fabulous indie brands – be it fashion, beauty, kids clothes, toys, books, home decor, food, recipes , you get the drift. It’s like Pinterest, Amazon and Facebook rolled into one. I’ll share some of my favourite Instagram brands in another post. Plus I’ve been following a lot of accounts related to fitness, food, home decor and parenting that inspire me and give me hope.
I am prone to jealousy but by and large, this community doesn’t stir up too many negative emotions nor do I feel the pressure to keep up. I look at these Instagram accounts and pages as free tools to learn new things, seek inspiration and get better. I even got interesting work opportunities thanks to the platform, so while I have toyed with the idea of deactivating my account I don’t see the need for it. On good days, I share the joy I experience and on bad days, I seek validation and support. Doesn’t seem like a bad deal at all.
Paperback writer 