Crafting the Perfect Insta-Mom: The Construction of Contemporary Maternal Identity on Instagram

This study examines how contemporary maternal identity is constructed through the Instagram account of Indonesian celebrity mother Jennifer Bachdim (@jenniferbachdim). Drawing on Jean Baudrillard’s concept of hyperreality, it argues that Instagram produces motherhood as a maternal hyperreality, in which curated representations become more authoritative than lived experience. Using critical discourse analysis, the study identifies four dominant discourses: effortless motherhood as moral achievement, picture-perfect mother–child intimacy, performative wellness as moral competence, and consumerist motherhood. Together, these discourses construct an aspirational maternal ideal grounded in aesthetic coherence, emotional harmony, bodily discipline, and consumer choice. The findings show how Instagram collapses the boundary between authenticity and simulation by transforming care and intimacy into visible moral performances. Maternal success is framed as an individualized project achieved through self-management and market participation, while structural and relational dimensions of care remain obscured. Situated within the Indonesian context, the study demonstrates how global influencer aesthetics intersect with local moral ideals of motherhood, generating new normative pressures on maternal subjectivity.