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I’m not Catholic (although I did get my first communion as my mom was raised Catholic) but I do continue to celebrate lent because I think it is good opportunity to reflect on how I can focus my life more on Christ. Giving up something that takes away from my focus on Him. This year I gave up YouTube. And I’m not sure I’ll ever go back.

Before I was pregnant with Holden I never watched YouTube. I had no idea that YouTube was what I now know it to be. I knew there were people who did reviews, how to videos, political commentary, pranks, and various things like that, but I was completely in the dark about this mommy vlogger business.

I started watching mom/lifestyle vloggers on accident while pregnant with Holden. I was searching Instagram for superhero nursery’s and found an account belonging to a woman who was two months ahead of me in her pregnancy with a son and also doing a superhero nursery. I saw a YouTube link in her bio and discovered she was filming her pregnancy with updates, but also filming her entire life. Like a reality show with episodes, and expensive equipment, lighting, editing. She was my age and also having a boy. I found it fascinating.

I didn’t have many pregnant friends or acquaintances at the time, but had this need to find my place in the mom world. I wanted to know what other moms did, how they prepped for baby, decorated a nursery. I wanted to know what their trimesters and symptoms were like and then what postpartum was like, and breastfeeding. There was always the next thing. I had no village, but wanted one so badly and YouTube filled that void perfectly. It was always there, but no extra communication on my part. It was like having a fast and easy friend going through the same thing as me. I quickly got sucked into other channels and became very immersed into this little corner of the universe.

I soon found myself swallowed into a black hole of this content. I’d fill up my Amazon cart full of products per their recommendation. I began wanting things I didn’t even know existed.  I watching birth vlogs, what’s in my hospital bag vlogs, home tours, decorate and clean with mes, and become very well versed on the lives of these technical strangers. I started looking at how they cooked, cleaned, traveled, shopping, decorated, ate, at how they lived.

For a while I really loved this. I felt like I had women to relate to and connect with, but shortly after that I started to question if this was a healthy habit to have picked up. I realized the content was all increasingly superficial, materialistic and making me feel kinda bad about my own life.

It soon made me question how I lived in the real world. I watched these sped up “clean with me videos” of women cleaning their already clean bathroom, or easily spend $500+ on Christmas decorations. I realized they each had spray tans, eyelash extensions, lip fillers, fake nails, salon days for their hair, and one spend over $900 annually on make-up at Sephora. I began to question myself as to why I was even watching them. The only thing we had in common was that we were all mothers.

I began to think my house wasn’t clean enough or pretty enough. I felt envious of these “stay at home moms” with a lucrative side gig and expendable budgets, I started feeling bad about how I dress, fix myself up. I thought maybe I would benefit from living life more like them, but I found myself getting angry at them. Rolling my eyes at their social media posts, complaining about the outrageous spending or the misinformation they spread about pregnancy and birth.

Then finally I realized I don’t actually like these women, they don’t value what I value. They aren’t who I want to be. This constant stream of content  was making me question why I continue to fill my life with something toxic and that has such a negative effect on how I feel. I didn’t like women who believed their appearance was this important. I didn’t like a lot of what they stood for and how they impacted my life. I didn’t like how they made me feel angry and annoyed, but that I continued to watch them. So I asked myself why.  WHY am I watching them? And figured lent would be as good enough time as ever to take a break. A break from consumerism culture, a break from social media over load, a break from something that is having a negative impact.

After some reflecting this is what I’ve realized is the problem with YouTube and why I’m cutting myself off.

What they do makes not one difference in my life, but what I chose to spend my time on does. So I turned it off. I used to love getting a peak into other new moms lives. I loved anything and everything baby. I was trying to figure out the who I am as a mother. YouTube really did serve its purpose at that time in my life. I could connect with women who were experiencing the same life changes that I was. But I’m not really a new mom anymore, and although motherhood has changed me profoundly, I am deep down still the same person I always was, just with a stronger set of moral guidelines. Now I’m at a place where I’m pretty confident in the mom I am and the mom I’m striving to be. I don’t question my choices anymore. I also have made some real life connections with mothers who value things I value like saving money, minimalism, experiences over things, Christian values, and living a life that means more than social media content and channel views. I’m comfortable cutting out anything and everything that is toxic or negative in my life.

For Lent, I usually give up sweets, or iced coffee or something like and as soon as it’s over I go get myself a carmel macchiato. But this lent I’m not sure I’ll go back to my YouTube watching. I think it’s been good for my soul that I’ve taken a step back from that influence.

I also question the mental process of people who expose their children on the internet. I wonder what the repercussions of this will be. There have been multiple headlines of content creators abusing their kids, playing mean pranks, faking life events for views. I decided I didn’t want to be apart of that. I didn’t want to feed that beast with my views, time, link clicks, likes, or buy into their endorsements.

Our children are the most important investment we make in this life. There is something disturbing about a parent using their children as a prop in a way to make money, or putting their life on the internet for millions of people to see.

Once I started thinking of these YouTube channels in this way I just couldn’t continue watching them in good conscience. I know Lent is an opportunity to better ourselves and focus on Christ, and I think this is the first Lent that I have participated in a way that it is intended. Nothing on YouTube made me a better person. It made me bitter, jealous, annoyed, and made me covet the lifestyle I thought might make me better.

Spending more money on clothes, getting my nails done, or makeup won’t make me happier or make me a better wife or mother, but spending less time on social media might. Focusing less on what I don’t have and more on what I do have will definitely lead to more happiness, and getting the real life connection with mothers who value what I value will fill the void of the village that every mother so desperately needs.

I don’t think all YouTube, or make up, or shopping is bad. But letting my form of entertainment become one big advertisement on how I should be living life did much more harm than good for me. I have been focusing a lot on cutting out the negative influences and getting down to the minimum. The necessary. The important things. And it is changing everything for the better.