How momfluencer culture impacts women psychologically as
consumers, as performers of their stories, and as mothers
On
Instagram, the private work of mothering is turned into a public
performance, generating billions of dollars. The message is simple:
we're all just a couple of clicks away from a better, more beautiful
experience of motherhood.
Linen-clad
momfluencers hawking essential oils, parenting manuals, baby slings,
and sponsored content for Away suitcases make us want to forget that
the reality of mothering in America is an isolating, exhausting,
almost wholly unsupported endeavor. In a culture which denies mothers
basic human rights, it feels good to click "purchase now"
on whatever a momfluencer might be selling. It feels good to hope.
Momfluencers
are just like us, except they aren't. They are mothers, yes. They are
also marketing strategists, content creators, lighting experts,
advertising executives, and artists. They are businesswomen. The most
successful momfluencers offer content that differs very little from
what we used to find in glossy women's magazines like Glamour and
Real Simple, only they're churning it out daily and that content is
their lives.
We
flock to momfluencers to learn about fashion, wellness, parenting,
politics, and to find Brooklyn-designed crib sheets printed with
radishes. Chances are, if you're a mother reading this (and maybe
even if you're not!), you are an arm's length away from something
you've purchased because a momfluencer made it look good.
Drawing
on her own fraught relationship to momfluencer culture, Sara Petersen
incorporates pop culture analysis and interviews with prominent
momfluencers and experts (psychologists, academics, technologists) to
explore the glorification of the ideal mama online with both humor
and empathy. At home on a bookshelf with Lyz Lenz's Belabored and Jia
Tolentino's Trick Mirror, Momfluenced argues that momfluencers
don't simply sell mothers on the benefits of bamboo diapers, they
sell us the dream of motherhood itself, a dream tangled up in
whiteness, capitalism, and the heteronormative nuclear family.
Momfluenced
considers what it means to define motherhood for ourselves when
society is determined to define motherhood for us.