Today has been tough. Youngest child is being potty trained, and, after some early success, this afternoon there were two unapologetic toilet stops on my kitchen floor. It got to post kiddie bedtime, and I found myself reaching for my phone wanting that quick endorphin hit from some social media post. Then flicked selfie photo mode on to check out if there was a shred of attractiveness left in my exhausted working mum of two bod. Photo taken, I then consider the myriad of options to enhance and edit said photo…

And then I stopped. What am I doing?

I’m a well-educated woman with a fantastic job and a beautiful family. How do I think my self-worth could possibly come down to an edited selfie?

It’s totally ridiculous when you think about it. But I can guarantee you most of us have had times where everything has rested upon how good we think we look, often as a judgement or comparison to someone else. It makes me cringe inside thinking about it. And mad. It makes me mad that society at large beats us with an image-conscious stick. It’s outrageous we think at edited selfie makes or breaks us, but that is exactly what we are told every day by media coming at us from all angles. And what do so many compliments come down to? What do all of us love to hear?

‘You’re looking lovely today.’

‘Your daughter is so beautiful.’

‘You have the most gorgeous eyes.’

‘You’re looking amazing for *insert age milestone/life trauma/child-related ageing event*’

I received a patient complaint several years ago. Whilst the complaint itself was a bit odd (the guy was annoyed I had explained to him the reasons behind investigations requested, when he had asked me to explain said investigations), I was most cheesed off that he had described me as the doctor who looked late thirties. I think I was 28 at the time. How to twist the knife eh.

The problem is it doesn’t stop with an edited selfie. Caring about how you look in a photo is one thing; editing it is you telling yourself you do not look good enough just the way you are. And it’s all part of the mentality that we must present ourselves in a certain way to have worth, to be accepted.

It wouldn’t bother me so much I don’t think if I didn’t have kids. My eldest is a girl – refuses to wear a dress of skirt, wants shortest hair, the only girl in her football class. My youngest is a boy – wears all the dresses eldest refused to, has pink flowery wellies, angling for my nail varnish. And I want them to be exactly who they are, whoever they want to be, do whatever they want. Apart from urinate on the kitchen floor, they need to not do that.

I’ve thought about this a lot. I think the only way to be truly happy is to truly not give a rat’s arse about your selfie. Or about what some random may or may not think of that selfie. It makes us all feel good to get dolled up, to know someone else finds us attractive, but there’s a point where it becomes unhealthy and wholly distracting from what is important in life and to our own health. We should all feel that we have the freedom to be happy without the shackles of self or others judgement on how small/big (delete as appropriate for what’s on trend for the decade) our bum is.

The photo on this log is my selfie from this evening. Unedited. Full of imperfection. And I can’t say I’m fully there, but I’m much closer to not giving a rat’s arse than I used to be.