Monday, March 15, 2010

"Mom Blogger"

I'm a mommy blogger. I write about my kids-and occasionally that means the writing will mean taking a break from my crazy spawnlings precious little gooey angels of love. I'm also not opposed to making money at anything I spend my time on and that includes blogging. If that makes me a navel gazing money grubbing absentee parent in someone else's eyes, so be it. The words of other people don't define me and I have no guilt over anything I'm doing so why should I care if someone sees what I'm doing in a different light?

Why should anyone care?

Apparently a lot of people do. I was surprised this morning to see a large portion of the SITS crowd going all torch-wielding mob over a New York Times article on mommy bloggers. Like being labeled a mommy blogger is demeaning, or saying that blogs take time away from your kids is unfair, or saying that moms are trying to feel more relevant and an wage earner by making money is inaccurate...but here's the thing....the article is honest.

If you are a mom who blogs about her life with her children, you're a mommy blogger. There's nothing wrong with that-it only has negative connotations if you allow it to. I like to think I say a lot of interesting non-mom related stuff but even if I don't, so what? Does that make my material any less interesting? Does that make it poorly written? No. So I just take it for what it is-a description. It has no more power than I give it.

Also-blogging does take time away from kids. In my experience, even the people who say they "only do it when their kids are napping or asleep" spend time checking their emails and doing other blog-related activity (Facebooking, Tweeting) during the day and you know what-that's fine. Who said that our job as stay at home moms is to be doing for our kids 24/7? Everybody needs a break sometimes-kids need time for independent play, and moms need time for independent thought. It's a great match...and if you don't feel it's a great match, to the point that you are offended when people point out the obvious, then maybe you should reevaluate if blogging is truly what you should be doing. If you never do anything that you're ashamed of or feel guilty for then you won't have a problem.

Lastly it is absolutely reasonable to note the extensive branding process that some mom blogs go through and how that relates to the mom's need to feel relevant and her desire to be a wage earner. It's a fact that many women convert their blogs into empires for precisely those reasons-and if you did, you should be able to admit it and not be insulted when people point that out. Be proud of what you did-or don't do it.

I do think that the NYT should have talked about how different the media involvement is from blog to blog. PR in the mommy blog world has a lot of different faces and not all of them are that of the high powered, driven CEO mom looking to turn her blog into a career. This article overlooked that a lot of moms don't do PR at all, and aren't interested. Many moms do some PR work, but only in so much as they feel is good for their blogs-for example, some participate in community stuff like BlogFrog or Networked Blogs (on Facebook), but don't do ads or reviews. Some are like me-I do reviews and giveaways for things that I love and that I think you all would enjoy, but I have turned down many reviews and giveaways and even a few sponsorships because I believe my blog is worth a lot more than money.

The bottom line is really simple...not everyone is going to like what you do, and that applies to everything in life including but not limited to blogging. Still, if you like what you're doing and feel that you're doing the right thing then you should be secure enough in your lifestyle choices to agree to disagree without drama. There's no reason to go at people who have other views all angry-mob-style because you'll only wind up skewering your reputation with your own pitch fork.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was kind of surprised at the reaction myself. Although I guess I understand why some of the women feel their quotes were taken out of context - that would probably annoy me too.

But I wasn't quoted and it doesn't really bother me what the article says.

I blog because it's fun. It's a nice way for me to connect to the adult world.

That's really my bottom line.

Melissa aka Equidae said...

I completely agree with you! BTW I finally am seeing you blog looking great in every aspect :)

Samantha said...

Your blog is looking super cute!

And I agree with you. It's a nice little escape :)

MamaOtwins+1 said...

I'm a mommy blogger, I'm proud of it! But the article doesn't bother me. We all have our different blogs - we know what we do, and we do it because we enjoy it.

Who cares what anyone else thinks!