The 9 Types of Moms You See on Facebook

By Lauren Le Vine, REDBOOK.


Facebook is celebrating its 10th birthday tomorrow, and who could believe what started in a college dorm room as a way for students to check each other out would expand to a global network that pretty much everyone and their mother is a part of? Not only has the platform come a long way (remember Super Poking?), it's given rise to a unique social culture--and no one seems to have taken to it quite like moms.

Now, we're not here to point fingers; we've definitely fallen into each of these categories at times. Instead, let's honor Facebook's first decade with a salute to the the myriad virtual versions of ourselves it's allowed us to be.

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1. The Every-Milestone-Ever Mom

Her little nugget/love monkey/peanut face ate Cheerios for breakfast today… here's a photo of him doing it! And yesterday, he lost one hair follicle. This mom couldn't locate it for photographic evidence, but here's an artist's rendering in case you've never seen a strand of hair before.

2. The Favor-Seeker
This mom only takes to Facebook when she needs carpool help, a new source for cloth diapers, or a preschool recommendation. And while you can sometimes glean some helpful information for yourself from her friends' responses, you can't help but wish she'd either relegate her requests to email or mix in a non-favor every once in awhile.

3. Let's Make a Deal Mom

This mom thinks of Facebook not so much as a social network but as a place to "like" brands in exchange for coupons and deals. The good news is you can easily hide her activity from your feed; the bad news is you worry you'll actually miss an amazing Kohl's discount code by doing so.

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4. The Crusader
BPA, nitrates, vaccines, attachment parenting… this mom likes to read up on all the latest causes, health concerns, and parenting trends. She also likes to let everyone else know what she finds out in the form of 16 new status updates a day about her latest findings.

5. The Complainer
Listen, we've definitely taken to the 'book to vent our frustrations after a sleepless night during which one kid had a fever, and the other decided it was absolutely the right moment to go on a hunger-and-sleep strike until he got same new Lego set as his friend Jude. But while it feels cathartic, doing this makes your friends constantly wonder if you're actually falling apart to the point where they should seek outside help.

6. The Pinterest-Perfect Mom

Does this mom live inside a Pinterest board? Every birthday party is worthy of a Martha Stewart spread. A simple 4 p.m. snack looks like it was crafted by Wolfgang Puck. She may or may not have a light box and professional photography studio in her home, because there's no way these pics were snapped with a camera phone.

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7. She's Too Sexy for Our Newsfeed
This mom is going to have to do a lot of photo purging when her kids are old enough to see what she's been up to on Facebook.

8. The Philosopher
An existential quandary or two is fine. If your latest musings about parenthood, life, and why we're all here are going to pass the two paragraph mark; however, please relocate them to a more appropriate long-form venue, like WordPress or Tumblr.

9. The Hipster
That Upworthy story you posted? She shared it last week, and she's going to write that in the comments. Really though, she's so over Upworthy. It's all about Viral Nova now. Whatever, she probably won't even be on Facebook next week.


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