425. CEO Mama: Could Social Media Be Your Secret Weapon For Motherhood?
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Hello, welcome back to the show. Today's another CEO Mama episode. And this is another one from deep in the archives of my old podcast called Motherload. And this is an episode I recorded about why

why I actually think social media can be an incredible resource and a positive place for mothers. And I think this is an important topic to me because I think there's so much conversation about how negative social media can be and how much comparison there is. And, you know, the trad wife movement and all these things that kind of gain traction and, you

feel negative or derogatory towards motherhood on Instagram and creates this dialogue of social media and the negativity from others. And I think I wanted to bring a positive perspective to all of that with this episode. Gosh, I mean, to me, honestly, social media is somewhere where I've learned so much and I've connected with so many people. And I think about, you know, going through motherhood

alone. And doing it without social media feels really crazy to me. And I think it's an interesting conversation. Our mothers did it and their mothers did it, obviously, but they had more of a village, at least I believe they probably did, than we do now in terms of

actual in-person community support for many of us. And so in some ways, social media has become our village. And that's what I talk about through this episode, plus just the amount of education and knowledge and help when you need to figure out something niche about motherhood that's right at your fingertips. So

I hope you enjoyed this episode. I remember feeling really passionate about this one because I had talked to a friend right before recording this and she was like, you know, social media makes me feel like a terrible mother and I'll never measure up. I can't keep up with the Pinterest mom, but you know, all these things really like, and I felt myself wanting to agree with her. And, but then I thought about it. I'm like, you know, I actually feel like social media really has helped me be a great mom. I've learned so much about parenting and about self-esteem and about humanism.

healing and all these niche things that really are important to me to do well as a mother and to understand. And I feel like I have this big motherhood community. So anyway, I hope you enjoy. And as always, thank you for listening. And if you have thoughts or questions or opinions, I'd love to hear them. Shoot me a DM and I will see you on the next episode.

Hello and welcome back to the show. Thank you for being here today. For today's conversation, I want to share what I think might be a little bit of an unpopular opinion. I'll be interested to see what you think. But this unpopular opinion that I have is social media has made me a better mother. And I bring this up because I was having a conversation with a friend a couple weeks ago, and she made a comment offhand comment of like, you know, Instagram makes me feel like a terrible mother. And I was like,

And this is a friend who is an amazing mother by all definitions of motherhood and parenting and all the things. And, you know, at first I found myself wanting to just like blindly agree like we do when people make comments like that where I'm like, yeah, Instagram sucks. But I don't really believe that, you know, and as I sat with it a little bit.

Her and I didn't have time to have this conversation, but as I sat with it afterwards, I'm like, you know what? I'm so freaking grateful for social media for the reasons I'm going to go into today because I feel like without Instagram especially, but without social media in general through my journey as a mother, I don't think I'd be where I'm at. I don't think I would have the tools and the insights that I have. And when I think of like...

the existential journey of motherhood in our culture. And I look at previous generations that didn't have something like social media to create awareness of a shared experience. And then our generations currently that have had really pervasive social media. I think it's hard to argue that motherhood isn't having a more positive trajectory in terms of culture and influence on from an understanding standpoint of people,

whether you're a mother or not, really understanding the burden of the mother, the mother load and what women who are mothers are going through and how that positively and negatively impacts the dynamics of our families and our culture and everything around us. And so

I will today present an argument that I think is a good one, that there are many positive things about social media in terms of how they can impact your motherhood. And maybe these are things you haven't thought of yet or aren't aware of that may give you some relief when you're, you know, mindlessly scrolling on Instagram, which I am very guilty of doing. I absolutely will touch on a couple things.

Of the shadows, too, because they exist and I am not blind to them. And I have had plenty of moments where I'm like, I'm a terrible mother. I definitely like my kid definitely doesn't act like that or do those things. And kind of the pitfalls that we can fall into because of social media, too. So we'll get to those. But I want to start with the three things that I think social media has really done for me in a positive way to impact my motherhood differently.

or my perception and my ability to be a mother, my feelings about motherhood, just motherhood in general for me. And those three things are, so number one, parenting tools. I follow so many accounts on my Instagram that I found through friend sharing or just, you know, the algorithm showing me

parenting accounts that have such good, simple, actionable tips about how to handle situations and circumstances that come up as a parent that I would otherwise be woefully underprepared for. And I honestly, like, I asked my parents these things. I'm like, how did you learn how to navigate this stuff before social media? Like, how did you know what to say to me when I had

that reaction to something, you know, as a four or five-year-old. And they're like, you know, I don't know. We just said what our parents said. Or my dad, you know, my dad read like a million parenting books, which I think was rare for his generation. And he's like, well, then the whole brain, whole child that said blah, blah, blah. I'm like, oh, good, dad, you actually...

You were doing the work. But so yeah, I think number one is parenting tools. And I'll go more into depth on each of these. I want to get through the list. So number two is the sense of community or the quote unquote, the tribe, right? You know, the village. There's a really well known adage, like it takes a village to raise a child. It takes a village to raise a mother. And

and to heal a mother when she becomes a mother. And because we don't live in tribal culture in America anymore, or, you know, I guess there's some semblance of it and depending on where you live. But I think that that idea of really having a tribe or a community of other women around you who have had the shared experience of motherhood before you to help you heal and to help you integrate and understand all of these things that are happening physically, emotionally, spiritually. In the absence of that,

We find social media. And yes, there's a shadow side to that. And there is a there's a dark side to finding communities of people that you think are safe to share what you're going through and ask for support and advice. And then you get hit with judgment. Absolutely. But I think by and large, social media presents an opportunity to find a village, even if it's virtual, that may not exist for you in your real in-person environment.

community. So that's the second thing that I think social media has provided for me. It's all of you. You know, it's this tribe of people who are living the shared experience with me, who I may never meet in person, but we can have a DM or we can have an exchange in the comments, or you can even just silently consume a piece of content and have that feeling of like, man, she gets it. She understands what I'm going through or that really resonated with me. And then the third thing

is all of the tools to do inner work. I talk a lot about this on the podcast because it's such an important thing to me that, you know, that it is incumbent upon us as mothers to do our work first, to be good with ourselves first before we are

able to be great mothers, great devoted mothers before we're able to go be successful, ambitious people. Not that you can't do those things without having done inner work. But I do think, at least in my experience, at some point, one or the other or both of those things are going to come crashing down around you if you're not good with you. So I think that one of the places I found the spark to do the bulk of my inner work and where I continuously find inspiration in the form of quotes and

tools and prompts and inspirational messages

people who have had insights of their own that trigger an insight for me. I find all of that on social media. And yes, I go read the books and I do the journaling. I have all my practices, but a lot of my inner work journey, the seeds of that were found in social media. So those are the three things that I think in a nutshell would make my unpopular opinion be that social media is actually has really helped me be a better mother. And those three things, again, are parenting tips and tools.

the sense of community and like the shared experience tribe or the village of other mothers that doesn't exist in my real life. And then inner work tools and resources, and just the self awareness that that has brought. So jumping into parenting. So a couple of things on this one that I think are really interesting when I look at the stories of how this comes up in my life, you know, and

I send a lot of it to RT these days because I'm like, oh man, you know, here's a gentle parenting Instagram tip that's like, hey, instead of using these words, like use these words. And instead of rewarding performance, reward effort. And, you know, a lot of this canon of like how to raise good, successful, self-aware kids that love themselves, like happy kids that love themselves. That's what I want. I'm sure that's what you want, a happy kid that loves himself. And I think of,

all of my friends who are also trying to raise kids like that. And it's like, I don't know that I was raised like that. Were you raised like that? And you know, all my friends are like, no. And so to me, I'm like, okay, where else would we be learning this? Where else would we be learning these tools that help us

Come to our children with gentleness, with compassion, with discipline, but discipline that's rooted in teaching and guiding, right? Not in harming or in scaring or frightening them. Yeah, sure, I could go read some books, but, you know, am I realistically going to do that at the level of comprehension that I can get from somebody's effort on social media to break it down into, you know, the five things,

that you need to know about this type of behavior or sleep tips, creativity tips. I mean, one of my favorite accounts to follow on Instagram is Busy Toddler. And that has changed my life as a mother in terms of resourcefulness around the house and

getting the kids using their hands and doing crafts and things where that is not natural to me and not something that I enjoy doing myself. But that account makes it so accessible and teaches it so well that I've bought a lot of the inexpensive supplies and given them the opportunity to learn a lot through sensory bins and glue and stickers and all these other things. And so I want to call that to your attention because I think

The shadow side of parenting on Instagram can be the, you know, I'm doing it wrong. That feeling of I'm doing it wrong. Like seeing people share expertise and wisdom about how to

create a certain outcome from a situation with your child. And then if you don't do that, or you react in anger, or you react in with words that you don't want to say, or with an energy that you don't want your child to feel from you, then the immediate response and you being like, Oh, I'm doing it wrong, such a terrible mother. And so I think it's important to acknowledge both sides of that coin to say, I think one of the most beautiful things about Instagram and social media in general is

There is so much education out there about how to be the kind of parent you want to be, regardless of what type of parent that is. For me, that's a, you know, mostly like quote unquote gentle parenting where there's a lot of meeting the child where they're at and understanding what their personality is and how they need to be met when they're experiencing big feelings versus yelling at them or isolating them by putting them in their rooms, like, you know, those type of things.

I think the positive side is there's so many tools offered for how to approach situations using those styles. The shadow of that is, yeah, absolutely. Do I react in anger at my children? Absolutely, I do. For sure. Not always, but sometimes they get past a threshold of tolerance in me and I will react in a way that I don't want to react. And then I have that spark of a moment feeling where like, crap, I'm doing it wrong.

I'm a terrible mother. That was a terrible thing to just say to them or do like that energy is not how I want to show up. And what I think is so interesting about the culture that we live in now where you have social media is perhaps without social media in the past, without the instantaneous nature of being able to go access another tool to repair what just happened. I think of like, okay, what, what was my experience as a child when I was yelled at or, you

disciplined in a way that felt sad or scary to me. What did my parents understand about that situation and how to repair it versus now where do I still make some of those same mistakes? Absolutely. But can I go and find a resource on how to repair almost immediately? Yes. And so

I would argue that parenting tools and learning how to be a better parent, which we know is a huge part of the mental load of motherhood, is parenting in general. I think social media is a wealth of information on that. And it's for the most part broken down into extremely actionable, like really easy to implement bites because of the way

The trends on social media are these days. And even in those moments where you get the hit of like, I'm doing this wrong, I still think you can go back in to those same accounts and look for ways to improve what just happened that you didn't like, the mistake you just made. The other thing about parenting and the mental load of parenting that I think social media offers is so many different

tools and templates for the day-to-day task stuff that's related to parenting. So gosh, I have found so many like meal plans and lunch ideas. If you listened to my last episode about how much mental time the idea of having to pack a lunch for Sawyer for kindergarten every day has taken up in my mind. I spent a little bit of time on Instagram and obviously the Instagram gods know I'm thinking about that. So they've started to show me suggested posts about

packing lunches. And so now all of a sudden, I've got saved a whole little collection of Instagram posts about packing lunches for kindergartners, you know, that they're most likely still going to eat and, but don't have peanuts in them, because you know, most schools can't have peanuts, all the things. So a lot of that mental labor is

of parenting and even the task oriented aspects of parenting, I think social media offers a lot in terms of reducing the load on us as mothers by breaking down that content into things that we can take action on right away. And thank you in advance to all of my friends that I follow on the internet who are probably mothers themselves for the most part, leaving these accounts where they're taking that information and making it digestible. Like you are the village that I speak of in the next part.

by helping me be a better mother. And I'm very grateful for that. And I don't know if this is the unpopular opinion or not, but I do think that from a parenting standpoint, Instagram has made me a much better mother. It has really helped my mental load by making parenting easier for me. The second thing, so getting deeper into community and a sense of community. I think this is a big one. And again, this has the shadow of the

Fear of getting canceled and the comparison and the envy and the privilege and all these things that are wrapped up in a shared experience and being part of a community who have a shared experience. And I think that the beauty of community around motherhood is sharing.

being able to have these conversations with people where you get the head nod or the the DM head nod, you know, the gift that's like, yes, I get it. With other mothers who are like, you are speaking to my soul, you know, launching this podcast and just the flood of DMs I've gotten from you guys who are listening about how this stuff resonates, you know, I'm like,

I'm saying it because I saw it somewhere else. You know, it's like this needs to be talked about. And I don't necessarily have a lot of people in my life that I hang out with on a day to day basis or who I have the time to spend a lot of time around right now, who are living a very similar experience in terms of motherhood, like who have kids my same age and who are also working and all of that. So to be able to go find that community on social media and be able to ask questions and

or sharing experience and just feel acknowledged and held in that experience as a mother, I think is incredibly powerful. And I wonder, thinking back again to generations prior that didn't have this or had it in a in-person only form, you know, I look at like the generations before us, just immediately before us that didn't have social media. So like Gen X, the boomer generation,

Where were they finding their community of other mothers? Like they're finding them through the school that their child went to. They're finding them maybe through church or other community organizations like that. Maybe in the workplace, if you were working and had other women around you that were mothers that were also working, but a place dedicated to a conversation about motherhood, I'm not sure really existed.

in the last few generations in America. Now, going back a couple hundred years, and you start to maybe hundreds of years in America, and where all of our

descendants have come or our ancestors have come from all over the world, you know, when we get back into tribal culture, there's definitely more of a village, more of a sense of community about the journey into motherhood, right? Like I think most tribal cultures in the world to this day, and if you look back on history, most of our ancestors came from cultures where there was much more of a sense of community or a

around the mother, the journey to becoming a mother, to healing from birth, to understanding the identity shift, to, you know, assuming your role in the village of being the support for mothers to come after you, all of that, that sense of community existed in person for technology. And then through the Industrial Revolution, as we got more spread out and more interested in capitalism, you know, I think our culture changed

lost some of that. And I'm not an anthropologist and I'm not a researcher. Someday I hope to talk to someone who's done this kind of research. We can have like a really scientific research-based conversation on what really happened to mothers through the industrial revolution. And then, you know, through the 1900s where, and World War II, where a lot of mothers ended up going to work. Like the first generation of women largely was around in the 40s,

During World War II, where women had to go get jobs because a lot of men were deployed and they never really returned from the workforce back into the home after that. And so looking at the loss of community around motherhood, not around parenting necessarily, but around motherhood.

And, you know, the proverbial village, when did we lose that? And I would argue that we didn't really reclaim that until pretty recently with the pervasiveness of social media. And yes, absolutely. There is a major, major shadow to community on Instagram, on social media in general. And I think a lot of us would recognize through COVID and, you know, just the last couple of years, how much like quote unquote cancel culture is

has become prevalent. And, you know, unfortunately, I've witnessed a lot of that happen between women, mostly women canceling other women for having different opinions on things like parenting and choices related to what you want to do for your children, or yourself, you know, and I think that there's probably a whole lots of more conversations and episodes about that specific thing and how that happens on social media. And I'm not an expert on that. But

I would be remiss not to mention that there is some fear in seeking out community on social media around motherhood for fear of getting canceled or getting shamed or judged for your experience or your choices and having other mothers tell you that that's wrong or something about that is bad. And I feel that, you know, like I...

I struggle with that to this day and I will for a long time. You know, like it is very hard to overcome the fear of someone telling you that you're doing it wrong when what you're doing is raising children, your children, being a mother in your experience of motherhood. I have plenty of opinions on what's good parenting and bad parenting. I have plenty of opinions on what's good self-awareness and lack of self-awareness, but to tell a mother that

that she's doing it wrong. And for that reason needs to be quote unquote, canceled is pretty bold. And I, you know, without going too far down, down a tangent here, I strongly disagree with that. I don't think that that helps the general collective of motherhood to try to cancel other mothers.

So we'll just say that. But in conclusion on that point, community, tribe, the village, all of those things, I think in that way, social media has made me a much better mother because I have all of you guys. I have my friends on the internet, people that I don't necessarily even know in person and may never meet in person, but I know they get it and we can DM, we can have a shared experience and commune about that. And I really...

That helps me, you know, that makes me feel better and it makes me feel less alone, which is a big part of the mother load for me. And then the third thing being the tools and the resources to know yourself better, to do your own inner work. I think similar to parenting,

Social media has offered people who are experts in this and people who are thought leaders in this a platform to share their gifts and their tools so that people like me who had not done a whole lot of inner work prior to starting all of it, people like me can access it really easily. And what I remember thinking back in 2020 when I started, you know, I was kind of thrust into the inner work overnight when RT and I separated. And, you know, I made the decision in that moment to

That I wasn't going to come at him with a bunch of reasons why he was wrong or why it was his fault. You know, he needed to do his own work on himself and figure those things out. What I was going to do in that moment was go within, do my inner work and figure out how we got here. You know, what was my role in this happening? And...

I remember as soon as I started to follow some of these like inner work, psychology, mindset, related accounts on Instagram, all of a sudden, you know, my feed was just full of them because the algorithm, right? But

What was really beautiful in those during that time was I felt like I could open Instagram at any time and be shown something in that moment. It was like the universe knew or the algorithm was just really effing smart. Both. You know, I would log in and I would read something and be like, damn, I really needed to read that right now. And it would either...

affirm something that I was inquiring within about, or it would give me a prompt, like something to journal about, it would give me a tool that I could take into therapy with RT or just send to RT and say like, hey, you know, this is an interesting way of looking at this, this dynamic of communication or trust or expectation, whatever it might be.

And again, similar to what I talked about with parenting, I really feel like I don't know where I would have gotten a lot of those tools if it hadn't been for social media. You know, I would have had to go

spend 10 times more on therapy or would have had to read, you know, 10 times more books than I read. And when you think about the time that that takes to have the same insights and the same growth that then gets collapsed because of all these experts and leaders on social media, sharing their insights and sharing their knowledge and skills so beautifully and like

willingly. I personally am so grateful for that capability I had based on all those tools to do my inner work and for my inner work to be accelerated because of that access. So for all of the negative side of self-awareness and like narcissism and all these terms that get thrown around on Instagram, especially, but on social media around like

It's a place where you don't have to show up as yourself. Like you're only getting the highlights. Like you're not seeing the real person. One, like I really try to be the real me on Instagram and everywhere because I'm

I'm just to a point in my life now where I'm not trying to fool you and there's nothing to hide. Like you want to know something, I'll give you the real, real. And I think that's actually pretty common on social media, more common than we might want to believe. Sure, they're super curated, like mom blog, Instagram accounts. Absolutely. They're pretty easy to spot. You know, I think they're pretty easy to spot. Then there's a lot of us who are really living our real, true, authentic lives and sharing that stuff. And

The more of those people that I have found and connected with and followed and really engaged in their content, in addition to like the accounts that are really truly teaching based accounts, like educational accounts about inner work tools, the combination of those two things, I'm just so freaking grateful for. Like they changed me. They helped me be a better mother because they brought into my awareness, the shadows and the gaps I had in the understanding of myself and

that were always going to inhibit my ability to be a good mom if I didn't figure it out.

And be a good mom, like in terms of being a good parent and a good mother for my children, but also be a good mom for myself. Like the identity of Lindsay would not have been restored or even I wouldn't have even had the awareness that I had a fractured identity had it not been for what I found on social media through those, you know, the last few years of really awakening to the fact that I felt so out of alignment with myself and seeking out the tools to repair that. So yeah.

In terms of looking at the shadows of inner work and self-awareness on Instagram, I mean, on social media, yes, absolutely. Is there an opportunity for you to represent yourself as something you're not? A hundred percent. And we all know people or accounts that we may follow where that may seem to be the case. And that's fine. That's totally fine. I think that's a lot of what social media is there for, for a lot of people is that

a platform to show the highlights or to sell something. And that's fine. I don't think that that needs to be a reason why it can't be a powerful tool for you around self transformation and personal growth. So I argue, whether this is an unpopular opinion or not, I think social media is an incredible place to find insights and tools and resources and community and support.

around inner work and personal transformation. And I absolutely did that. And I feel like it really very positively impacted my ability to change and have a personal transformation in 2020 and 2021, which I feel has led me down a path of a much more integrated approach to motherhood, a much better understanding of where my ambition factors in, where my devotion to motherhood factors in, who I am.

in the midst of that, you know, dynamic and what I want from my life, what the meaning of my life is, which as you know, it's a big part of the why of doing this podcast. I'm such an advocate for you understanding yourself first, why you are here, what your meaning, what your purpose is outside of just being a mother. Not that that's not enough, obviously, but there's more to each of us as an individual than only our role as a parent, as a mother.

And I think the waking up to what that is for you, what your broader meaning and purpose of your life is, I think waking up to that requires a pretty deep level of inner work. And I love seeing how social media plants those seeds for people and helps them on the journey of that awakening and gives them a platform to share their insights. So yeah.

All of that is to say, I don't think that this is necessarily everybody's opinion. And I'm so okay with that and really interested in other opinions on this. The purpose of sharing this was so that, you know, maybe these are things you haven't thought of or things that you consume regularly on Instagram or other social platforms. I say Instagram because I am an elder millennial and I don't really spend any time on TikTok. So if you're listening and you're a TikTok generationer, sorry, switch out Instagram for TikTok.

Someday I'll get on TikTok. My 21 year old nannies are like, you'd be great on TikTok. I'm like, I don't even know how to use the app girls. But I digress. What I was saying was, you know, I think that it gives you some awareness of what you're consuming. And if you are someone who when you consume on social media, you often find yourself feeling depleted or negative about what you're consuming. Perhaps this is a way of reframing it to say like, actually, you know what, I do get a

accounts I follow. And I actually do get a lot from the community aspect from the people I've connected with that really resonate with, you know, where we have a shared experience and we resonate in terms of our shared beliefs and opinions. And wow, cool to like meet all these friends on the internet that I would never meet in real life otherwise.

And then, you know, how amazing to have, quote unquote, like free therapy. There's so many resources on Instagram for you to go find therapeutic resources that you can apply to yourself to go find inner work resources and tools. Side note, it's not a replacement for therapy. If you want to seek that out. I mean, I've had thousands of dollars of therapy and I'm a strong advocate for that. But I do think that for many people, therapy is not something that they can

afford, or it may not be the starting point for inner work. And I think social media can be a great starting point. If you're embarking on a deep inner work journey to go find just the basics, to go ask the questions about your inner child, and the shadows, and the patterns and habits that you have the belief systems that

that have been ingrained in you for a long time that maybe you're not awoken to, you know, the roles of your of your family and your lineage and why you are the way you are checking off some of those basics. And then if you feel called to therapy from there, absolutely, you know, that is a path that I recommend for everybody. All of that to say, what a way to reframe feeling like

Social media can be a place of, I'm failing at life. This is depressing. I'm not doing it right. Envy, comparison, privilege, like all of those things. What a reframe to look at it as like, wow, what a gift to come in here and find journal prompts. Like what a gift to come in here and find a detailed explanation of how to do an inner child inquiry. What a cool thing to come in here and read this inspirational story from somebody who went through a really similar experience.

negative experience as me. And here's how they healed themselves. Like that inspires me to go do this work to myself. I think that if this accomplishes anything, I hope it's that you can

The next time you're scrolling and you feel kind of the negative, icky feeling about it, and you have that desire to blurt out, like, I just feel like Instagram makes me feel like a terrible mother. I hope that today's episode has given you a couple things to think about in ways that it can be a really positive influence on your experience of motherhood around parenting and community and inner work. So...

As always, I am very interested in your opinions on this and whether you agree or disagree. Ironically, the best way to reach me is via social media. So shoot me a DM at at Lindsay Roselle. I would love to chat with you about this. I'd also love to share, you know, if you have a great parenting Instagram account that you follow or TikTok account you follow, a great inner work account.

great communities that you're a part of on social media platforms. Gosh, I don't even know the names of all the ones I follow. But I have many that I follow, especially on Instagram that are parenting related accounts that I just I love everything they do. In our work related accounts, I love everything they do. So there's a lot of them out there. And I'm always interested if you've got favorites too for you to share them. That is all for today. Thank you again for listening. And I will see you on the next episode.

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