"I put my symptoms into WebMD & it turns out I just have kids," writes Lisa as she welcomes her followers to an entertaining ride through her parenting experience. As the founder states on her website, everything began with a Twitter account in 2014 when she decided to document the funny and wild shenanigans her boys make her go through.
To her surprise, every tweet she shared deeply resonated with her followers. What started as an outlet to commiserate with fellow parents living through the same painfully hilarious surprises turned into a massive success that quickly spread beyond the Twitter-sphere.
Today, 'Sarcastic Mommy' has branched out to all the major social media channels and gained a strong foothold across the internet. For instance, it has amassed over 117k followers on Twitter and 414k devoted fans on Instagram. It has even gained astonishing popularity on Facebook, where a whopping 1.8 million people eagerly wait for new sarcastic gems to grace their feeds.
We managed to get in touch with Lisa, who was more than happy to tell us all about her project, its community, and the beautifully chaotic reality of motherhood.
"The initial inspiration was for Twitter to be my escape," Lisa told Bored Panda. "I know a lot of my friends that I’ve met through social media use it for that purpose too. It was an outlet for me to kind of decompress, take all the family chaos and be able to turn it into tweets. It was therapeutic in a way, knowing I could tweet some things and no one knew who I was!"
Lisa admitted she still has trouble understanding how quickly the account has grown. "I definitely never pictured it getting this big either, it’s basically a job for me now, but I love it," she added.
When asked about the community, Lisa noted it definitely feels like it mirrors her and her outlook on life. "I know a lot of my followers just want to laugh, they have things going on in their life where they just want to be able to escape for 3 seconds and know that they aren’t alone and use that same escape I used."
It's safe to say that people from far and wide find her project to be a great tool to unwind and gain some perspective on how to navigate countless obstacles of motherhood. And Lisa also mentioned that Twitter is the perfect platform for parenting and humor in general, as "it’s just a whole different world of social media."
"When you think of Instagram, you think of perfect lives and everyone going on vacation," Lisa added. For many women out there, this is alarmingly true. Parenting has a way to make mothers feel quite isolated, and it can urge them to start comparing themselves to others, especially when they’re at their most vulnerable.
Alarmingly, moms already feel enormous pressure to be flawless, and meticulously curated pictures on social media that imply perfection don’t ease the burden. In fact, psychologist Ilyse Dobrow DiMarco, Ph.D., explained that mothers who engage in social media comparison feel more overwhelmed, more depressed, and less competent than those who don’t.
Perhaps that’s why Lisa has learned to embrace that things aren’t perfect. "I mean, I was pretty shameless with my tweets knowing that I was anonymous for a while. But people love that because a lot of parents go through identical situations without realizing it."
This is what keeps her passionate about sharing sarcastic and all-too-relatable insights online, and thankfully, she doesn’t intend to hold back. "We have this community now that’s unfiltered and just real, there’s no BS when it comes to the content," Lisa explained.
Apart from social media, the 'Sarcastic Mommy' website also offers resources for parents of various backgrounds and upbringings about the art of raising children. Lisa invites content contributors and writers to share their perspective and their own unique experiences that she might not have been through. "It’s grown so quickly but the image and the mission haven’t changed. That’s what matters most to me," she added.
It’s undeniable that parenthood is a life-altering experience, and knowing how to handle all the trials and tribulations can be a daunting task. But Lisa firmly believes that sharing experiences online, both good and bad, gives comfort to parents by letting them know they’re not alone.
"That’s why I love my community," Lisa told Bored Panda. "You could say the most ridiculous thing your kid has said/done and at least a handful of parents have gone through the same thing."
She continued: "I know a lot of parents come across posts and just have a deep sigh of relief, like 'Ok so it’s not just me. I thought I was crazy', and then they can just laugh about it. It can be easy to panic as a parent, but in reality, they’re actually doing amazing. Parenting will never be an art of perfection. Stop trying to be perfect!"
