Yeah, it does matter, actually.

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I saw another one of those little videos that occasionally pop up in social media, or at least in my social media (because social media computers know I have given birth and therefore I must want to see all the babies other humans have birthed.  Or something.) with the following message.  Tell me if you've heard this one before.

"Do you feel sad because your house is dirty and you spent the day doing parenting things?  Well I'm here to tell you that you shouldn't feel sad because your children don't care about the state of your home they only want lots and lots of love!  Who cares about dirty old housework?  Not you, that's who!  Because you are a 'good mom'!"

Does that sound familiar to other people?  These videos are always accompanied by mothers - always mothers, never fathers - holding infants and rocking them to sleep or else down on the carpet playing blocks or something.  Always that.  There is usually a panning shot of a dirty messy house also.  Toys everywhere.  For some reason a sink overflowing with dishes is a common image.  Sometimes the little rascals are just being oh so adorable and emptying bags of toys on the clean floor!  Or prancing around a mud puddle!  Or smearing paint on the floor!  Oh it's just the twee idyll of motherhood, yes it is.

Okay so the problems I have with this are multiple.  Every single time one of the videos or memes pops into my life in some way I feel an up swell of deep aggravation.  To start with, parenting is a middle ground.  It is no more accurate to say "I love my kids so house and laundry and food and education and toys and money and so on be dam*ed" than it is to say "I love a clean house/luxury food/whatever so I'm not going to bother taking the time to connect with my children". Those are extremes!  They're EXTREMES.

And along those lines I'm going to hazard a pretty good guess here and say that, with the exception of extenuating and unusual circumstances, most parents DO love their children and DO show that love and they DON'T need to be told "Now Jessica, don't forget to give your kid a hug at the expense of mopping!"

Secondly, yes it IS important to continue to do things that make your mental and physical health good, like eating stuff multiple times a day and not feeling obligated to hold your baby 24/7 and cleaning your house and sometimes making food that isn't from the microwave.  That's a GOOD THING.  You don't have to feel guilty about that.  You don't have to be told (Maybe you do!  Maybe I've read society all wrong!) that if you're trying to get Christmas dinner on the table you can tell them with confidence that NO, you WON'T play with them.  You are doing something *GASP* more important right now.

On top of which this is all so shaming to people who don't fit the stereotypical 'good parent' these days.  I have approximately zero desire to, for example, play with Lego.  I don't want to play Lego.  According to this whole methodology I am a bad mom because I can't bring myself to lie on the carpet and make houses out of plastic bricks.

"No no!" you say "This isn't that at all!  It's just helping people feel less guilty for choosing to spend time with their children over all the other things of life!"

Well that's just nonsense.  I mean, to begin with those other things are ALSO important things.  It is important to live in a clean house and wear clean clothes and so forth.  You aren't IGNORING your children by making sure that those things are available, you're providing for them.  And on top of which you're showing them by example that they don't run the house - sometimes it is time to play and sometimes it is time to work and sometimes it is time for mom to be on the phone and not looking at the picture you just painted so please be patient.

On top of all of this is the deep seated belief that as a mother you must always, always, give in to the children in some way, shape or form.  It's practically sacred writ at this point that Children Always Come First, and not just in the 'save the children from the Titanic!' way, but in the 'I'm exhausted after work but Jimmy wants to take singing lessons so off I go!' way.   And before you know it, you are completely exhausted and your back hurts and your eyeballs feel like boiled onions but heaven help you you promised a birthday party with twenty kids and you're going to give a party with twenty kids.  And a bouncy castle.  And help with the science diorama and also chauffeur the younger sibling to something special so they don't feel left out and also someone posted something on Pinterest about letting your children play in the dirt to build immunity so you'd better do that too.

Actually, no, you don't.  Don't shriek at me.

These sorts of periodic social media stances on the Very Best Ways To Be are talking down to us all, assuming our natural instincts to cherish and care are insufficient, continuing the subtle but pervasive mindset that we need someone professional to tell us how to parent properly.  And for the vast, vast swathes of the majority this is utterly, utterly ridiculous and untrue.