Today I’m talking about Venmo moms, volunteer moms and everything in between.
If you haven’t heard of a “Venmo mom”, it’s a term that’s been going around on TikTok and Instagram lately. Essentially, a Venmo mom is someone who isn't really interested in being a hands-on volunteer with their kid’s school, team, etc. They wanna just send some money to support those programs.
You’ll Learn:
In my opinion, one is not better than the other, but we can learn something from both approaches.
---------------------------
I recently saw a TikTok from @nealfamilychaos, who was talking about how she doesn’t want to do all the hands-on stuff, but when she just sends cash, she feels judged by other parents who volunteer a lot. She said, “I don't want to be on PTO, PTA, room mom, team mom. I don't want to do any of that.” And she said that she feels really stressed when they start asking for volunteers.
Her video went viral, and there were a lot of comments from other moms who felt the same way. Even moms who do volunteer shared how much they appreciate the moms who send in money. There’s a place for everyone.
It's easy to compare yourself to other moms and to judge yourself or think that other people are judging you. But the truth is that there are so many ways to be a mom, and we all have different capacities and amounts of time, energy and money.
I love this TikTok mom for owning her own story and reality. She’s okay with who she is and the way she’s willing (and not willing) to contribute.
You can let your no be no - No, thank you. I'm not interested. I'm not available. I'm not open to volunteering this year. That's not gonna work for me. And just let that be okay.
You're doing your best. You're doing what is right for your family, what works for your kids or you or your finances or your time or your energy. You don’t owe anyone an explanation.
There are benefits to being involved, on the inside and having some influence, but it can also come with a lot of demands, pressure and time.
I’ve been the volunteer mom at certain stages. The first year my oldest son was in elementary school, I really didn’t know anything about our Parent Faculty Association, and I didn’t want to do anything. Over time, I started to get more involved. I became a room parent, started to take on some leadership roles and eventually became the president of our PFA.
There’s a lot of unpaid labor in the mom world, and this video really made me think about all the things we’re paying for - either with our money, our time or both. It brought up some questions for me that you can use to determine where you want your time, energy and dollars to go.
Is it necessary? Maybe we don’t actually need to be doing all this stuff for our kids. Maybe we don’t need a special treat after every soccer game. Some of the things that have become expected or the norm really might not be necessary at all. And by overparenting, we’re creating too much work for ourselves.
How can we distribute the workload? Of course, some things are necessary. It’s not fair for the stay-at-home parent or the primary parent to be giving all of their time and energy to the school. It’s a huge sacrifice.
Can we outsource or do things in a different way that puts less burden on...
