How to be an Insta-Mum

insta mum

There’s been all sorts of talk lately about the Insta Mum. Get them with their shiny houses and perfect lives, constantly making “normal” Mums look bad.

I take offence.

Being an Insta Mum myself, I can tell you with 100% confidence and honesty that some of us just find life easier than others.

It’s hardly my fault that I’m naturally poised, and live a life of seamless dignity.

Just because YOU’RE a shambles of bad hair, poor fashion choices and permanent humiliation, don’t take it out on the rest of us, sweetie. (Sweetie is the sort of word an Insta Mum would use, I think)

While your family holiday photos might be embarrassing, the Insta Mum knows the holiday photos should be perfectly posed and hashtagged. How else are we to inspire envy among our followers?

The Insta-Mum is definitely, categorically not someone who would be photographed:

  • with a face that’s sunburned to within an inch of its life
  • riding a zip-line while adopting the pose of a frog/someone having a bowel movement
  • screaming her head off, or
  • ALL OF THE ABOVE

Oh. Hang on…

not an insta-mum

Yeah. Scrap that. Turns out that I’m never going to be an Insta Mum.

Ah well. The upside is that I have probably found the world’s most embarrassing photo. Unless someone else can top it?

My excuse for this photo is that… well, I have no excuse.

We were on holiday in Mexico earlier this year, and had taken a tour of some of the area’s cenotes. After swimming through some underground caves, we came to this large natural lake, with various ropes and platforms around it.

Flea begged and begged me to go on this zip line with her. So, I found myself jumping off a rock, 25 feet above a freezing cold body of water. Needless to say, my natural grace and dignity kicked in. Thank GOODNESS there was a photographer there to capture it, eh?

As a contrast, allow me to share a photo of my daughter taken one minute later.

Like I said, some of us are just born with natural grace, dignity and poise. Flea is an Insta-Mum in the making. She also laughed so hard at my photo that she fell off her chair. Twice.

My theory here, though, is that NOBODY is really, truly an Insta-Mum. Sure, some of us do an awesome job of taking pretty photos and curating them into an Instagram feed. But it’s JUST an Instagram feed.

As real, three-dimensional people, we’re all equally fallible. And we’re all (I hope) equally willing to make ourselves look like complete idiots to make our kids happy. Am I right, fellow insta mums?

20 thoughts on “How to be an Insta-Mum”

  1. Oh wow Sally, I think I just peed a little! No wonder Flea fell off her chair looking at the photo. It’s priceless! Oh the stuff we do for our children…

  2. This is my favourite photo of you ever. EVER. It’s one to frame and keep on the wall in your office. Maybe make it your new avatar thingy. You must! I did a post about our holiday to France showing all the Insta fails and the photos that never made it to the gram. Some of those outtake photos, though, are my favourites!

  3. Oh this is the best photo ever – thanks for sharing! That is exactly what I’d look like if I did that but I have to say well done for doing it (“hashtag best mum ever?”). I need to get in our photos more -for better or worse! Now, please tell me there is a video of you on this zip wire doing the rounds…

  4. I think you should make this photo your blog header, profile pic, Gravatar etc. It’s AWESOME. You get serious mum points for that! And also I’m super impressed you did a zip line with no harness – I would be too scared to jump unless i was strapped to the wire! x

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