“The beacon is lit. Gondor pleads for aid. Below the title, a McDonald’s logo is on fire. A guy makes a weird face while crushing a watermelon with his chin. “I’ll be honest, I haven’t had a Baja. ” a band sang “suckin’ on chili dogs” to infinity.
This is not a fever dream, but a meme sample that some of my old friends recently sent me on Instagram. In the modern era, sending a meme is the equivalent of picking out a trinket in a store that reminds you of a friend. When I receive a letter, it is an immediate reminder that I am known, my friends, and even though we cannot see each other as often as we would like, please remember the things that made me who I am.
Stephanie, neighbor turned close friend, knows how much I love Lord of the Rings. I have known Jarod since I was 12 years old and he has always used dark humor to describe our poor mental health. Jackson, who I knew in high school, sent the weirdest stuff from young people on Instagram, a corner of the internet I would never have seen without him. Joanna was my college roommate. She sends in a steady stream of funny animal videos and weird humor, which is just how our brains work (see: chili dogs).
Every time I receive these trinkets that relate to different parts of my self, I’m reminded of how one-dimensional my own algorithm is. My childless friends bring their fortune to my DMs, but it’s hard for me to reciprocate because my network looks nothing like theirs. According to the algorithm, I am just a simple person: a mother.
The slapstick, Vine-style humor of my five-year plan disappeared from the moment my algorithm calculated I was pregnant. The same goes for content about musicians and artists I like. Instead, I keep seeing kids’ birthday party dramas on Tik Toks about who’s the jerk, “Sunday Reset” and “End of Shift” and all the baby care tips from so-called experts who use social media to sell you theirs Baby Care Tips.
Yes, there are some great parenting memes out there – my husband and I go back and forth about these all the time. “You totally do that,” we say, or “Oh my gosh, that’s so Cooper.” His algorithm knows he’s a parent, too, despite the obvious irritating, advice, how-to, mind-blowing videos Just flows into my feed. When a friend sends me another email Lord of the Rings meme, I mentally lamented the fact that I never see these things in my feed anymore. My internet just assumes I don’t care anymore, and frankly I could use a laugh more than I ever have.
To suggest that there is an unbridgeable gulf between parents and non-parents—that they simply can no longer understand each other—suggests a severe lack of empathy and imagination.
If you have no friends in the real world and only communicate online, you might think that not having children means you are inherently uninterested in the lives of your friends as parents and resent children because they ruin your perfect family. . To suggest that there is an unbridgeable gulf between parents and non-parents—that they simply can no longer understand each other—suggests a severe lack of empathy and imagination.
Fortunately this has not been my experience. Of course, my kidless friends have never fought for a spot at their nearest affordable swim school, but we all try to snag concert tickets before they leave. It’s not an alien feeling, just like normal people and good friends, they can temporarily put themselves in it to express sympathy.
My mom’s algorithm was probably designed to suit my needs better than my previous algorithm, and to be fair, I swallowed it. But while I was trying to get my son to sleep, the deluge of advice on social media destroyed my confidence as a new mom while exacerbating my anxiety and overwhelm. In the spiral, it was actually my childless friends who made me feel better. I don’t want to talk to my mom friends about our efforts to get more sleep – I don’t need their advice (I’ve tried it) or their reassurance (it’s easy for them to say it will get better – when ? But when my childless friends ask me how they are doing, I’m honest: I’m exhausted. The baby still wakes me up three times a night with exactly what I need: “Man, this sucks. Sorry. Straight up verification, no ifs, ands, or buts, that’s all.
Becoming a mother was the most transformative experience of my life, but before that, and in the midst of all the other life-changing events that merged into my life, there were people who knew me. They knew me well before my children were born and they know me now. They didn’t care if I breastfed or if my kids were potty trained. They know how much I’ve changed and how much I haven’t changed. Their friendship during my son’s first year convinced me of a simple truth: not everything changed the day I was born.
