A New Hampshire mom is opening the doors to her humble abode and giving TikTok users an inside peek at her self-proclaimed "average" house.
Stephanie Murphy of Derry, New Hampshire, shared a TikTok video of her home on July 13, which quickly went viral with over 606,000 views and more than 28,000 likes. Murphy captioned the post, "Lets normalize 'average' because there is nothing wrong with it."
"Everywhere you look on social media you see big gorgeous houses in perfect condition and its hard not to compare yours to them," she wrote at the time. "But its not the norm and half the time its staged. Our house is lived in, and its filled with love and tons of memories and at the end of the day thats all that matters."
The mom of one told "Good Morning America" she wanted to show other parents a more relatable view aside from the manicured house tours that often pop up on social media.
"I feel like social media is full of one perfectly curated video after another, and there is just so much pressure from social media to be perfect in all aspects -- to have perfect skin, perfect makeup, perfect outfit, perfect house. And the reality is no one's perfect," Murphy said.
"Honestly, I feel like there's a very good chance that all those videos that we see were staged and they probably like, moved a pile of toys behind the camera to film and then moved it back when they were done. But that's the part that people on social media just aren't sharing. They don't show you the behind the scenes and that is what I was looking to change," the 36-year-old continued.
Murphy said the proliferation of house tours featuring "perfectly clean and organized" homes led her to develop "a lot of anxiety," but as a content creator, she wanted to show that "normal" homes don't have to match an unrealistic standard.
"It starts to make you think that is normal. And then I start going down a spiral of like, why don't I have a bigger house? Why isn't my house as pretty as theirs? How do they keep it so clean and I can't? And I thought, if I'm feeling that way, I'm sure others are too. So, I kind of wanted to change the narrative and throw it out there so other people can see that not everyone lives in these gorgeous houses, just a small minority of people. I just wanted people to see what is average, what is something that's more attainable."
In Murphy's "average" home, she has "piles of shoes always by the front door," instead of footwear hidden away in neat closets, "floors that are in desperate need of refinishing" -- far removed from shiny, marble floors -- "a drying rack [that's] a permanent fixture on the counter" in lieu of a spotless dishwasher and sparkling dishes, among other ordinary features.
After Murphy shared her ordinary home online, she said her lighthearted post resonated with others and she received numerous comments from other mothers who said they could relate to her video.
"I think it's better for everyone's mental health to see others in similar situations as them so they know that they aren't alone. And that was the response I got from posting that video. So many people commented saying, 'My house looks exactly like yours. Thank you for making me feel normal. We need to see more of this,'" Murphy recalled.
It's a departure from what Murphy said was her reality years ago, before she became a mother.
"When I was single, my house was in perfect condition because I had the time to keep it up. But then when kids come into play, they take all the toys out, they make a mess and it's just constantly putting things away. But not only that, there's just not enough time in the day to do it all," Murphy said.
Nowadays, Murphy's message to others is that "perfect is overrated."
"Average is normal. I feel like that kind of just sums it all up. What you're doing is enough. It might not feel like enough, but it is -- and at the end of the day, the only thing that really matters is that everyone in your house is happy," she said.
