Except when did Facebook need to become an accurate representation of our entire lives? I post pictures and anecdotes mostly so that my long distance friends and family can keep up with the happy and precious moments of our lives that they may otherwise miss. Also so that I can remember those moments. I have a very poor memory.
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| The type of picture I usually post. |
Of course I post the pictures where the kids are smiling. Of course I update my status only if something funny happened or we are doing something interesting. But I don’t consider it a lie by omission so much as a public service. For instance, Nicole pooped on the floor during bedtime three nights ago. I did not update my status. I did not post a picture. You’re welcome.
Relaying our best moments isn’t new. Back when I wrote emails, I tried to fill them with mostly interesting and optimistic news. Before that, I wrote notes to my friends during my more boring classes. I tried to make them entertaining. And if I was going to go to the trouble of writing an actual letter and spending money on a stamp, you can be sure it had something worth sharing in it. Well, mostly. There was a brief time in my pre-teens when I sent a ton of letters to a friend that pretty much all said, “Hi, how are you? I am good. I am having dinner now. I have to go.” Sorry, Kelsey.
I like to think that even cavemen are guilty of sharing only the good stuff. That cave painting of Grog killing the mammoth with his spear? He probably sat on a rock for three weeks poking the dirt with a stick when he suddenly looked up and saw a really old Mammoth keeling over. That’s not exactly the kind of story you want to tell around the campfire though, so go ahead, Grog. Tell it like you wish it was.
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| The type of picture I usually take. |
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| Also I take these. |
I’m not saying use Facebook as a place to build your house of lies. But if you want to share just the good stuff, go ahead. If you want to share the more mundane happenings, do that too. I promise I won’t assume your life is perfect if you only post pictures of your family that look like they belong in a JCPenny catalog.
I know your kids are not smiling all the time. I know that sometimes they are chasing each other with blankets wearing nothing but underpants on their heads and last night’s spaghetti on their faces. I know your cats and dogs are not always sleeping sweetly in boxes that are too small for them. Sometimes they are peeing in your shoe when you don’t pet them and leaving hairballs on your pillow. I know that your significant other isn’t always making you pancakes or fixing your sink. Sometimes he is just ‘helping’ by lifting his feet so you can vacuum under them.
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| Sometimes my kids are cranky. |
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| Often my kids don't wear pants. |
Maybe instead of “stopping the lies” by posting “real (and shitty) family moments” on Facebook we can just acknowledge that no matter how many perfect-happy-shiny posts we make, nobody is perfect. We can concede that Facebook, like Fox News, rarely has the whole story.
Please, keep posting all your sunny-happy-perfect-life-is-good pictures. Keep posting all your epic-fail-I-should-have-stayed-in-bed status updates. Keep sharing hilarious memes and serious news stories. Because let’s face it: the more you post the more time it takes me to catch up on all of it. And the more time I can waste on Facebook, the less time I have to do things that are actually productive. It’s pretty much win-win.
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