When I watch mom influencers perform motherhood online, it seems so much more glamorous and peaceful than my own motherhood. Sometimes, when I’m doing the dishes or filling bottles or folding the laundry, I imagine a time-lapse of chores being done—a common style of video on these accounts—and it motivates me. In the writing of this book, I’ve occasionally found myself narrating my day for an imaginary audience like the mom influencers and family vloggers I’ve studied. “And then we want for a walk because it’s so important to get outside,” I think as I strap my daughter into my Ergobaby (#sponsored, if I were a true influencer) carrier. “We walked for two miles, and I got my steps in, and E loved looking around the neighborhood. After that, it was time to start our bedtime routine with a bath.” I watch myself from above like some kind of omnipresent god. I imagine a world in which my motherhood is commissionable and perfect and linked, where the work of mothering is valued. In the imagined world, I am not lonely. I have thousands of friends waiting in the screen of my phone.
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