I keep seeing these posts, right? Instagram, Pinterest, whatever the fuck kids are using these days. These immaculate playrooms, all the Montessori-approved wood toys lined up like little soldiers, the pastel color schemes, every goddamn book faced forward on a custom shelf. And I look around my living room, even now, at two fucking AM, and I see the pile of laundry I started folding three days ago, the dust bunnies under the sofa, the crusty bits of who-knows-what on the kitchen floor that I’m just too damn tired to scrub off. And my kids, now grown, had a childhood that was… loud. Messy. Full of plastic shit from Target, not ethically sourced anything. And I feel this pang, this gut-wrenching guilt, that I somehow deprived them. Deprived them of this 'magical' childhood these screens are constantly throwing in our faces. Like I failed them by not creating a goddamn museum for their childhoods. Is that weird? Does everyone feel this constant pressure, even decades later, that they weren't enough? We humans are so easily swayed by what we perceive as ideal, aren't we? It’s like we forget that childhood, real childhood, isn’t some curated photo shoot. It’s chaos and scraped knees and the joy of making forts out of blankets, not custom-built treehouses. But still, it nags at me. All those years, feeling trapped, feeling like my mind was slowly atrophying amidst the sippy cups and the endless demands. I wanted more, sometimes, than just being 'Mom.' And then I’d feel guilty for wanting it. This constant push-pull, this feeling that I was always falling short, always doing it wrong. That I should have been happier, more present, less resentful of the endless parade of snotty noses and repetitive questions. And now I see these impossibly perfect images and it just… reignites that old wound. That fear that I didn’t give them enough. That I wasn’t enough. I mean, they seem fine. They’re functional adults, mostly. But that feeling never really goes away, does it? That quiet whisper in the back of your mind, saying "You could have done better. You SHOULD have done better." Like we’re all supposed to be these domestic goddesses, effortlessly creating these perfect little worlds, while simultaneously maintaining our own identities and sanity. It’s a fucking joke. A cruel one. And I don’t know why I let it get to me, after all these years. But it does. Every single time.