Perfection Isn't The (Only) Problem
There's a good reason everyone online seems happier than you
Nobody’s life is perfect, no matter what you see on their Instagram. But we all know that already, don’t we?
We know it, but we don’t really know it.
At this point, it’s common knowledge that “momfluencers” push aside countertop messes so they can mount their iPhones aimed at perfect corners, away from the sink full of dishes. We also know a few couples, famous or not, who post those perfect couple photos and then reveal that all along they were fighting, miserable, or dreaming of life far, far away from their spouse. Often, they admit that performing for social media was the only thing they did well together toward the end.
But somewhere inside, we still believe that our sinks full of dishes are worse, that our countertop messes are more chaotic. We still believe that our marriages are worse and that we are, for whatever reason, less deserving of love as a result.
“I just wish people didn’t act like their marriages are perfect,” my friend told me over lunch.
“But what’s the alternative?” I asked, knowing that there are times when I probably look like someone with everything going right, even when things are going very wrong.
“Post a photo of your husband picking his nose or the dishes he didn’t wash! I need to know that other husbands are not perfect,” she said.
“So you’d be cool if he posted on Facebook about the fact that I absolutely trash the bathroom counter and forget like 80% of the things he tells me?” I asked.
“Yes, that would surprise nobody,” she said.
“What if he posted about how I don’t take enough showers and sometimes my hair gets so disgusting he has to turn away in bed?” I asked. Those aren’t even the bad things. “What about when my emotional triggers are activated and I dissociate during conflict or pull away, emotionally, when I’m stuck in an emotional or philosophical spiral?”
“Okay, maybe not that,” she said, laughing.
She flagged down the waiter and asked for more cranberry-sodas, our current favorite non-alcoholic drink. For two non-boozers, it’s the perfect cocktail. I shook out the ice in the bottom of my glass, trying to loosen up some water. It was an honest and necessary conversation, but it was also stressful as hell.
“I just think it’s all gone too far on social media,” she said, resigned. “People like me feel really alone.”
I knew exactly what she meant. I feel it, too. But is there really a solution?
After all, isn’t asking women to appear “less perfect” online just more of the same: blaming women for what is actually a societal and capitalism problem?
When your marriage is in trouble, it’s hard not to see perfect couples everywhere. Even if you know some of these “we’re so happy together!” couples personally and know that they’re lying (or simply not sharing the whole story), it’s easy to feel like a complete loser when you’re the one crying yourself to sleep after a fight or worrying about your kids’ future.
In my dream world, nobody would feel the need to fake happiness online, because struggling couples would talk openly about what they’re going through, showing people they aren’t alone and making it possible to share encouragement, perspective and advice. If we were honest, people might start getting realistic about marriage: what it can add to your life and what it cannot.
The same goes for parents and homes. Every kid has struggles, some more than others, and parenting is challenging for lots of us and moms bear a toxic-level of this responsibility. Feeling like every parent is doing better than you despite your best efforts is defeating.
Homemaking is even more fraught, despite the fact that it’s significantly less important than marriages and parenting. For whatever reason, people believe that a tidy home means a woman is healthy, happy and winning at life.
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But we don’t share like that — and it’s not (just) because we want people to love or admire us. In fact, there are a few really good reasons why we keep our social media positive.
But before I dive into these, I want to make clear that I do not think this is a good system. In fact, I think it’s really messed up, just like modern marriage. I just want us to pause, zoom out, and think about this a little more objectively before we decide who to blame.
The problem isn’t just the perfection portrayed on social media.
The problem is that society demands perfect marriages and families — all while refusing to give us what we need in order to achieve even basic happiness and health, let alone “perfection”.
With that in mind…
Here are a few good reasons why people don’t share their “dark side” on social media
Their family’s privacy & autonomy
Each member of a family is their own separate individual, deserving of privacy.
There will come a time when the world will know that you’re getting divorced or that your child is going to repeat first grade. Those things are hard to hide, and eventually you’ll have to face the faux-sympathetic comments from judge-y assholes who pretend to be your friends.
But you don’t own the exclusive rights to your family’s life story.
It’s OK to decide to keep things private when they affect your loved ones.
Nosy questions from inelegant acquaintances
When Ivan and I get in a fight, I want to talk to Rebekkah, Angela, Katie, Jael, Jess or another of my friends who shows up for me in real ways, whom I have sat across from on couches and at picnic tables and talked about the roughest aspects of our lives.
These are the people who believe my pain and frustration, but who have no hidden agendas. They want both Ivan and me to be happy, and they want the best for our kids.
What I don’t want is someone dropping into my DMs to tell me what they don’t like about my husband or offer the type of “sympathy” that is actually just pity or poorly-shrouded bait for gossip they will inevitably text to their friends within the hour. These uncomfortable moments are part of the reason people keep things to themselves.
If this sounds rude, that’s because it goes against what we think it means to be “nice” — as in, appeasing. For the people who don’t want pity-tinged bitmojis via DM, refusing to share sensitive stuff on social media is simply a healthy boundary.
They know that bad feelings come and go
If you’re like me, you can get worked up fast and find yourself hurtling toward a (metaphorical) cliff if you’re not careful. I always laugh when I think of the time I called Angela after an argument with my husband and the first thing I said after she answered was, “I swear to God he is a psychopath.”
She laughed and said in a gently sarcastic voice, “Yes, what a psychopath that guy is!”
I had to laugh. What was probably a benign argument that became, in my mind, proof that he is secretly evil.
I know this about myself, and Angela knows it, too — which is why she’s the one I am going to trust with my most vulnerable thoughts and fears. But the internet at large doesn’t know that it takes me an hour to wind down from an argument.
Private accounts aren’t all that private
My Facebook and Instagram accounts are set to private, and I curate the content that goes on those knowing it’s unlikely to be seen by the public at large. But I also know that even those accounts can be hacked, the site can have security issues, and bad people can screenshot whatever they want and make it public. So while I’ll share photos of my kids there (which I do not share on my public accounts), I will keep truly private things off social media entirely.
As I said in my first point, our kids’ and partners’ lives are not our property, and it’s easy to google someone’s name — or their parent’s name — and find an old photo or story on a social media page. This can be done by college admissions officers fifteen years in the future, the parents of your child’s future boyfriend or girlfriend, your spouse’s boss or potential boss, or anyone else.
To illustrate this, watch what happens when teenagers search their friends’ parents’ names on Facebook. This video was shared by
in a must-read Substack posting called When kids discover their parents’ old social media:
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Yes, it’s messed up that we are so voyeuristic and judgmental as a society.
But it’s not the responsibility of married people to share their struggles with the world, nor do any parents have an obligation to talk about their kids’ bad behavior or struggles relating to their specific child with the public. Curating your personal life on social media can be a very healthy boundary and doesn’t make you a bad person.
There are, however, some people who owe the public more than a perfect-but-inaccurate representation of life.
They are the ones who make a lot of money off a representation of what they claim is honest.
If you don’t know the story of Rachel Hollis, the author and influencer who marketed herself as a marriage and wellness expert, it’s worth learning what happened with her in order to understand where these lines do deserve to be drawn.
From Rebecca Onion on Slate:
“After a 99-episode run of dispensing marriage advice, charging $1,800 for couple’s weekends, and much posing on Instagram as a pair, in June of 2020, the Hollises suddenly announced that they were getting divorced… Beyond the ads and tickets sold on the power of their marriage advice, the Hollises presented themselves as a modern power couple: flawed in adorable ways, out to make money and love as an unstoppable team.
Marriage, the Hollises reminded me over and over (and over!) again, is work. That’s boilerplate couples advice, but the Hollises added a very Hollis spin: There’s no excuse for not working. The pair subscribe to the ‘you make your own luck’ school of American thought about life outcomes—work hard, and you’ll have all the money and companionship a person could ask for. As for how to do the work of marriage—’keep reaching for more tactics, more tools, more podcasts, more books,” enjoined Rachel…
Unlike famous married couples who are also credentialed clinicians like the Gottmans (who are both PhD psychologists) or Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt, the Hollises’ authority was built solely up on their success at being married.
They essentially lied to their audience and built wealth around the myth of their happiness.
They had a responsibility to be forthcoming about the actual state of their marriage because it was what people were paying them for.
I personally believe that anyone making money by claiming to represent their lives honestly has a responsibility to actually represent their lives honestly. Or at least mostly honestly — obviously everyone deserves some degree of privacy, especially children.
(A quick but important aside: There should also be laws that protect children’s earnings from exploitive parents using their kids for online content above a certain yearly income level. See the video below for more info on why.)
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Ultimately, helping people feel less alone in their pain and struggles is valuable, but loneliness created by our current system isn’t any individual woman or child’s responsibility to abate. It is society’s.
The myth of “the perfect life” is nothing more than clever marketing.
It is what pays the CEOs of social media companies, fuels multi-billion dollar beauty and fitness industries, and is a significant driver of the type of consumerism that makes the wealthy wealthier and contributes to massive consumer waste due to over-consumption.
On a personal level, when I feel struck with the feeling that everyone else’s lives are perfect while mine is a janky and down-trodden tire fire, I try to be a “good parent” to myself and consciously remind myself that everyone is under the same pressure to appear perfect — and everyone is failing to some degree.
Of course, if you do choose to share photos of your nasty-ass kitchen sink, your beautiful belly rolls or age spots on your hands, the story of the time you screwed up as a partner or a parent, or the fact that your marriage/career/car/boob job/beach vacation isn’t as nice as it seems from the outside, I salute you.
Also read: In Defense Of Burning Marriage To The Ground
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Lots to think about here. Which is good. Because I think people get into bad places with social media when they don't know why they're sharing and consuming. And totally agree — none of it replaces the need for IRL friends and real-world support structures.