By Brooke Behrendt 
I’ve been sitting with an “unpopular opinion” for a while now, one that feels risky to say out loud in a time when everything feels so charged, so labeled, and so easily misunderstood.
I don’t think we’re actually as different as we think we are.
I think most of us are actually much more alike than the internet would have us believe. We’ve been convinced that everyone must fit neatly into two opposing political boxes, but if left to think independently without comment sections and a newsfeed constantly telling us what we “should” believe, I think the majority of people would land somewhere in the middle. Nuanced and human.
It’s hard to see this humanity amid so much chaos in our country. And as a mom, it feels heavy. I look at my kids and think about the world they’re growing up in, and wonder how we got so far from curiosity and compassion. When did differing opinions become points of contention and constant noise, rather than conversation and learning opportunities?
A big part of the answer, I think, is social media.
While social media has done so many wonderful things for our world, connecting families and friends, sharing critical information, and offering additional means of support when it’s needed most, that has all come at a pretty hefty price tag. Social media has made it incredibly easy to find people who think as we do. And at first, that feels comforting. We follow, like, comment, engage—and without even realizing it, our feeds begin to narrow. But that social algorithm figures us out remarkably quickly. It then shows us more of the same viewpoints, more extreme takes, more emotionally charged content that aligns with what we already believe.
Before long, all we see is content that supports our perspective, and confirmation bias takes over. It starts to feel like there’s overwhelming “evidence” that we’re right, and that anyone who disagrees must be misinformed, selfish, or just plain wrong. Meanwhile, someone else is scrolling through a completely different version of reality, equally convinced they are the reasonable one. We’re not even having the same conversations anymore because we’re not seeing the same information.
It becomes harder to relate to someone with a different viewpoint when the only exposure we have to “the other side” is the most extreme, inflammatory version of it, carefully curated to drive clicks, outrage, and engagement. It creates a false narrative that the people who disagree with us are irrational or cruel, instead of simply responding to a different set of inputs, experiences, and fears.
And then there’s the added layer of the internet itself, where hiding behind screens has made it much too easy to say things most people would never speak out loud in a room full of neighbors, friends, or family. Online, though, it feels like anything goes, and people too often forget that there are real humans on the other side of their message.
My unpopular opinion is this: We’re not broken beyond repair. We’re just distracted, divided by design, and overdue for a little grace.
And maybe, especially as mothers, as women, as people raising the next generation, we can be the ones to gently pull us back together.
by Melissa Fenton 
by Shelby Spear 
by Jordan Pederson 
