Woman reveals the truth behind "social media mums"

We’ve all seen it. The husband bending himself into a pretzel for his wife’s perfect angle, the girl’s night where no one is having a good time until a camera comes out – and, we’re all kind of guilty of it.

But, when it comes to one of the hardest jobs in the world, parenting, it’s actually pretty damaging. Facebook user, Jen, took to her social media to talk about an incident that she personally witnessed in which a mother painstakingly publicly attempted to appear #mumgoals, but ended up proving why we shouldn’t believe what we see on social media.

Whilst at a public pool, Jen saw a mother set up a towel, perfectly pose her daughter and then proceed to take multiple photos of her, before leaving the pool.

The child then patiently waited while her mother posed her in front of the pool, then she jumped into the pool and came back out, all the time with a big smile and saying cheese “like she’d done it a million times”.

After the photo session was over, the mother took a phone call whilst her daughter pleaded with her to join her for a swim.

“Mama glanced over at her but never got off the phone,” Jen wrote. “After 10 minutes mama ended her call, collected the sunscreen that was never applied, the water toys that never touched the water, and then her daughter and left the pool.

“I sat there thinking about what I’d witnessed for a while afterwards. I imagined the photos she took being perfectly edited and posted to social media with a caption like ‘Pool time with my girly! #Makingmemories'”

Jen then thought about the “average” mum and how seeing these posts make most women feel.

“She’s going to look at that photo and she is going to compare herself to the perfect mama at the pool.

“She’s going to feel like a failure. Ugh!! She’ll never know that how she spent her time that day was so much better in God’s eyes and in her children’s eyes than that ‘perfect mama’ at the pool.

“What we see on social media isn’t always real. Sometimes, and often, it’s a complete set-up. It’s staged and filtered and it’s counterfeit.

“Mamas, don’t compare yourself. You ARE enough! You are amazing and the very best part is that you are REAL! Your dirty shirt and your messy house and your happy children are real and they are proof that you are doing it right.”