My late-night indulgence is scrolling TikTok and marveling at the ways creators tap into universal truths and incredibly specific niche subcultures that just feel so…spot on?!1 Things like the cool sister effect, black vs. white SUV moms, and our collective 7th Heaven amnesia.
It didn’t take long for the algorithm to figure out I’m pregnant2 and start feeding me post after post about newborn essentials, postpartum freezer meals, and delivery room scripts for when OBs inevitably turn into evil dictators and take your baby away from you.3
Yesterday I came across this gem:
Raise your hand if your Instagram has also become a wasteland of account after account on every niche aspect of parenting, babyhood, and toddlerhood 🙋🏻♀️
As I close in on just 10ish weeks (give or take) before this baby is here, the overwhelm is…overwhelming.4 I feel increasingly behind on making a birth plan, learning how to breastfeed and pump (wtf are flanges?), and architecting what maternity leave looks like as founder and chief-everything-officer of my own business.
There’s a time and place to indulge in media overload. Learning how to parent isn’t one of them.
As I bask in the latest full moon energy, I’m committing to a new approach to my parenting and baby-caring curriculum. I’m calling it media monogamy: finding the one source I trust for each learning topic, and letting instinct take the wheel otherwise. I’m releasing the pressure to read ten different birthing books and to take alllll the baby sleep courses. One is good enough.5
Media monogamy is a sacred commitment that will allow me to learn deeply, but I also won’t be afraid to “break up” with “the one” if I find it does not fully resonate with me.
Already, the relief is settling in.
The sociology major in me would have had a field day with all this if TikTok existed back in my senior year. That didn’t stop me from doing a final paper on the Pumpkin Spice Latte sensation and having to go to Starbucks multiple times a week for “research.”
And now that I think of it, maybe TikTok has the power to predict when I’ll go into labor, too? A pregnant girl can dream.
TikTok is apparently not the place for positive birth stories 😂
See also: good enough parenting.