Wife has bad anxiety. We're in the middle of the blizzard, and needs a pick me up.

My wife came down with something today and was pretty much in the same place mentally--felt guilty she "wasted" our snow day, which just dragged up all the other anxieties and guilt. In addition to everything else said here, one thing I found helped was pointing out a couple specific things she was doing better with the toddler than me.

For example, I'm maybe a little more patient with his toddler-ness, like tantrums and other unhelpful willfulness, which was one thing making her feel guilty today. But i think she's way better at playing WITH him than me. He and I "play," but I feel like it's mostly me nodding politely at his incomprehensible logic and whims. She engages the activity way better. So he and I might rummage in his pile of stuffed animals for a while. She and he did a whole story time/puppet show. I'm honestly always impressed and not sure how she gets him to engage at that next level.

On the Facebook thing, we've just accepted that a couple of our friends are crazy amazing people. No idea how they manage it, but we love them for it. The rest, we know they're faking it too, dammit! In return, we'll talk/joke explicitly about how to make our lives look as put together as possible when we post ourselves, especially on days like today. She might have been sick, but you'd think we spent the day baking, sledding, and making awesome block towers. The photos don't show that "baking" took 30 seconds to open the pillsbury cinnamon roll can, that the kid lasted like 30 seconds on the sled after we spent an eternity bundling him, and that our towers prompted a major meltdown after an incident involving a thrown block and my shin. No one will notice that the photos are all very tight on the kid or only show the back of my wife, because she was in no mood to be presentable to the outside world.

If you think about it, putting up a facade is pretty much a defining characteristic of middle class social life.. Facebook is just how our generation does it. Putting that right there on the table and keeping a sense of humor about how we do it ourselves helps keep it all in perspective. If nothing else, just look at your own feed sometimes like it's someone else--you'll look like awesome parents.

/r/Parenting Thread