Mothers across social media are using their platforms to share the realities of mental health challenges faced in motherhood. A few of them opened up to Good Morning America about the importance of shifting the "false narrative of motherhood" on social media.
"I was just sharing my journey, and what I was going through as a first-time mom in the global pandemic," Alexis Adegoke, a Dallas-based content creator and mother of three, said. She began sharing her motherhood journey on social media in 2020.
"I was dealing with the fears of what's happening with the world. And I just had my son, I just became a mom, and we were just all so unsure of what [COVID] was, and then to be in the epicenter of it all, in New York, and hearing the ambulances every second. It was just so scary," she added.
"When I got pregnant with my first in the fall of 2018, I had been a health reporter for almost 10 years," Cassie Shortsleeve, a mother of three and journalist in Boston, told GMA. "And while I had been writing about fertility, pregnancy, and women's health for years, nothing in my training had prepared me for what these times actually felt like.”
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Nathalie Walton, founder of Expectful, which is a hub for evidence-based health and wellness resources for fertility, pregnancy, and postpartum, chimed in with her opinion. "Social media has portrayed a false narrative of motherhood. Social media sets a high bar as to how motherhood is supposed to look and feel, which can make many moms feel inadequate," she said.
"The antidote to this false narrative is to show up as yourself. As more moms feel comfortable portraying motherhood as they experience it, others will feel less alone — and ultimately feel better navigating the diverse array of emotions and experiences that is motherhood."
