Mum Guilt in 2025: Social Media and the Pressure to ‘Do It All’

To our kids, we’re doing awesome - What they care most about is us showing up, loving them, and helping them to feel safe. Everything else is a bonus.

Let's bring our mind to the 'good old days' like my boomer mum and MIL always talk about.

Your morning starts by waking up, making a coffee and then getting the kids up. You chuck a slice of white bread into the toaster, pour out a glass of orange juice (and not the freshly sqeezed stuff, the one that was mostly water and sugar), slather the toast in margarine and vegemite (or jam if you were on the wrong side of vegemite lovers) and then you would plonk your kids in front of the TV to watch cartoons. A couple of hours later if the kids would come to you saying they were bored, you would simply send them outside for fresh air, to kick a ball or ride a bike.

As you sip your hot coffee you think to yourself - Ahhh! Parenting is easy!

Contrast to 2025 and the pressure to be “perfect” these days is absolutely everywhere. Podcasts on parenting, books on baby-led-weaning and Instagram mums making cough-drops from scratch, make everything that we're doing as parents seem like the bare minimum in comparison.

We scroll through Instagram, and all we see are mums with perfectly tidy homes, kids in matching outfits, and meals that look like they belong in a five-star restaurant. Meanwhile, back in our world (a little place called reality), we’re just trying to keep the kids alive while avoiding a meltdown at Aldi because one of the kids wants to walk rather than sit in the trolley and the other one wants to eat the yogurts before we've paid for them.

Want to read more?

Subscribe to mamainterrupted.com.au to keep reading this exclusive post.

Subscribe Now