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Dull Blogs of the World, Unite! Again!
By ella | January 31, 2005
God, journalists piss me off sometimes. Yet another article about the self-absorbed nature of bloggers. Not only that, but the author has seen fit to pick on the self-absorbed nature of mommy bloggers.
For heaven’s sake! At least be fair and pick on all types of bloggers. Don’t we, as parents, get enough grief without journalists weighing in with their two pennies worth as well?
Regular readers of this blog will know that I have had to defend blogging before when this blog was featured in an article which implied that bloggers and their blogs are dull. I was not arguing that this blog was anything other than dull (Heaven forbid!). I was arguing, however, that blogs serve a purpose for those that read them and more importantly those that write them. In my case, without sounding too melodramatic, writing this blog has helped me overcome some really dreadful times, given me a sense of purpose, given me a view beyond my little baby-driven world, allowed me to find other like-minded people and given me hours of fun reading some of the truly witty, poignant and clever blogs. Not all blogs are great, but all of the good mommy ones I read ARE. I read one or more posts a day which make me laugh out loud (and that’s before I’ve hit the gin). Part of the reason I suffered from postpartum depression is that I felt like I didn’t measure up to the stereotypes put forward in the media, I didn’t measure up to the parenting manuals, I didn’t measure up to how I thought every other mum was coping (nobody talks about depression, not really), I didn’t feel I had anything other to focus on than babies and I didn’t have anything other to focus on than my babies and how I wasn’t coping with them. Reading other people’s real experiences - not some biased media account, nor some parenting manual scenario - and hearing from other people in similar circumstances has helped me beyond measure.
I (and most mommy-bloggers, I suspect) don’t blog in the hope of getting a book deal. It’s never going to happen. And it’s not why I do it. I don’t blog to invade my children’s privacy. I write about the crap aspects of parenting; I don’t write about the crap aspects of my children. As for previous generations, they couldn’t blog because it didn’t exist, but I bet they might have if they could have done. Blogging is a technological development, one which has brought about a sort of online social development, not a psychological ‘it’s all about me, me, me’ development. Previous generations also often had family around them to help them parent. Even so, they probably suffered from the trials of parenting in the same ways we do now, but time is a great healer. I can’t even remember some details about my first baby and that was only two years ago. And blogging certainly doesn’t answer the question “why on earth am I parenting?” I only have to look at my children to answer that, to know that I love them and I want to do the best for them. Blogging is simply an outlet for what I am experiencing and feeling. And I like reading about what others are experiencing and feeling. No more, no less. It doesn’t need some psychological analysis and certainly not some ill-informed comment from a journalist who sits at a desk, far removed from what many parents experience day-to-day.
If journalists have a problem with mommy blogging, they either haven’t looked hard enough for the good blogs (not true in the case of the New York Times articles as many of the mommy uber-bloggers were featured), or they don’t ‘get’ blogging - and the idea of an uncensored, immediate, world-wide community - generally, or more likely they fear that blogging and blogging communities, and the internet generally, might be a threat to their journalistic skills, readership and the future of print media.
The old adage ‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em’ might serve these critical mainstream commentators well because, as we all know, you can’t keep a good blog down.
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Categories: Mommyblogging, Meta-blogging
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