You may have noticed the hashtag #motherhoodchallenge going around on Facebook lately. For the unfamiliar, the motherhood challenge is like the ALS ice bucket challenge except that it requires moms to post around three to five photos that make them “happy to be a mother” and then asks them to tag friends to do the same. It usually goes a little something like this:
I was nominated to post some pictures that make me happy to be a Mother I’m tagging some friends that I think are great Mothers to post some pictures for the Motherhood Challenge.
Being that the dictionary definition of challenge is: “a call to take part in a contest or competition, especially a duel,” it kind of goes without saying that the motherhood challenge isn’t so much of a “challenge” as it is a smug display of mommy narcissism, which is unsurprisingly causing some backlash.
But nothing sums up the backlash more perfectly than this photo collage by British comedian Ellie Taylor. Someone tagged Taylor in their own motherhood challenge photo, but because she does not have children of her own, she was able to make do in a pinch:
Another comedian, Vikki Stone, had her own apt take on the meme as a pet owner:
Let this be a lesson to us all. If you want to post pictures of your kids, that’s fine. So is posting pictures of your dogs or your booze. If we can all learn to use Facebook in a nonjudgmental way that doesn’t exclude certain individuals (including women who might be struggling to conceive), the world would be a slightly happier place.
(Via BuzzFeed and Scary Mommy)