Veggie Mama

Veggie Mama is a sass-mouthed repository of awesome recipes, cool crafts, sustainability tips and random movie quotes. It is where I share what I feed my veggie kids, my musings on motherhood and the finer points of wearing a home-crocheted beret. If I can't make your broccoli taste incredible... well then, your broccoli will still taste like crap

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Enough with the oversharing already

By Stacey Roberts on 19 Oct 2012 3 comments

I like the internet, I really do.

It brings me funny things like orb cats and witty memes and Mitt Romney doing stupid things.

But, I’m sorry to say, it also brings me That Which I Wish I Did Not See Just Now.

This week alone I’ve been subjected to a picture of a sloppy toddler poo on the carpet, a severed rat head, an infected toenail, a gardening scratch, a bruise, laser tattoo removal, a bleeding head injury from a wayward golf club, and a small child triumphantly holding up her first pee in a potty. Pee included.

And I’m going to say that which I wish I did not have to: there are some things that don’t need pictorial evidence.

Tell me, yes. By all means. But don’t show me (sorry Stephen King, I know this is the opposite to what you preach, but when you told us to “show, don’t tell”, I’m pretty sure you never envisioned a future Instagram).

I love sharing. I share. Hell, I write a blog and that’s the worst kind of self-serving prickery, I’m told. I put stuff on Facebook, I tweet obnoxious pictures of my brunch. My kids, they’re cute. I understand the compulsion.

I also truly do love to see proud parent status updates, I think it’s really sweet. But there is a line and some of you are crossing it.

I do not need to see first successful toilet trips. Only dad and grandma are interested in that… if you’re lucky.

I certainly don’t need to see unsuccessful ones, although I am sorry about your carpet.

Take this quiz: Are you annoying on Facebook and Twitter?

I truly, honestly, never ever need to see injuries to anybody, large or small, scratch or sever.

I have a fabulous imagination. If you tell me a baseball bat hit a face and not a ball, my mind works exceptionally well in picturing what that must look like. The last thing my psyche ever wants to see is an unsolicited picture of a shattered nose and a bloodbath. I can’t ever scrape that image from my eyeballs.

I don’t want to offend by unfollowing, and I think that’s probably a bit of an overreaction to a one-off infraction.

All I’m asking is that you please pause before you hit that “publish” button on the time your kid crapped in the bath. You’ve seen one shit, you’ve seen them all.

What's the worst overshare you've ever been subjected to?