I don’t know if you’re on the up and up with the blog drama going around, but allow me to add fuel.
A journalist for the New York Times spent the day with us at Bloggy Boot Camp in Baltimore. She interviewed a bunch of moms and was incredibly friendly and we were thrilled to have one of our own help spread the word in a way that might help other moms find a community they too, can lean on and learn from.
Bloggy Boot Camp was created by Tiffany and Heather of SITS as a way to:
a.) impart pearls of wisdom to bloggers who are fairly new to the community.
b.) Empower bloggers who might not be new, but could use some sound advice on how to grow their blog.
and
c.) foster the relationships women are forming online by providing a safe space to meet and be merry.
The article that was published is titled, “Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand” and it’s getting plenty of reactions from mom bloggers everywhere because the first half insinuates that mommy bloggers can’t be great moms and blog at the same time.
That because we’re blogging, we’re not interested in “sneaking vegetables into our kids’ meals” or teaching our babies to read. The hilarious part about that is that many of us are blogging about SNEAKING VEGETABLES INTO OUR KIDS’ MEALS!! I find it incredible that we, as mother’s who blog, can be criticized for not being attentive to the very subjects some of us blog about.
You gotta love a society that in one breath expresses the importance of mother’s having “me” time and the idea that if mother is happy then EVERYBODY’s happy, and in the next breath criticizes women for spending time on a hobby that makes it possible for some to help with their family finances.
After going on and on to Pat about how irritated I was with the article, he tried to stay balanced and asked me three interesting questions, here’s the gist of our conversation:
1.) “Why do you care about this when the article wasn’t even directed towards you?”
“Because it was directed to mommy bloggers EVERYWHERE! And I am one. And I was there and I feel like they totally missed the mark on what that conference was about…plus those are my friends they’re being snarky about! How much do you want to bet that the rude attitude journalists take towards mommy bloggers comes from the knowledge that there are some mommy bloggers making more money writing than they are and we didn’t have to leave our families or get a degree to do it.”
2.) “Since when can’t you take a couple jabs and not roll with it?”
“Since they’re picking on something I’m sensitive about and I desperately want to be a good mom and I try so hard. To have people criticizing what I do makes me second guess myself and sometimes I DO feel like maybe I should get off the computer and pretend I’m interested in a bug Kainoa sees on the door and oh. my. gosh you’re RIGHT! Me being offended by this totally stems from mother’s guilt!! Can we never shake the mother’s guilt!?! If I stopped blogging and spent every moment of every day tuned in to what my kids are saying and doing and learning and baking chocolate chip cookies, than I’d be desperate and lonely for adult interaction and for a way to express myself as an individual. But if I spend fractions of my day tuned in to people who keep me from feeling lonely and occupying myself with an outlet for my creative genius and I skip the chocolate chip cookies, then I get criticized for not being a perfect mom. It’s a lose lose. I can’t win.”
and finally,
3.) “What’s for dinner?”
“You know…I am SO fed up with The Man right. Make your own dinner and get me a mimosa STAT! I gotta go find that bug Kainoa was talking about and teach someone to read around here. These kids are IDIOTS and it’s ALL. MY. FAULT!”
In short.
I’m tired of defending mommy bloggers.
As it turns out it IS possible to raise amazing children AND blog at the same time. If you can make some money in the process? Bravo.
In fact, I am here to tell you that you can raise amazing children, run a home daycare, breed a colony of mice, keep a house clean, maintain friendships, volunteer for field trips, foster rescue dogs, manage finances, cook a mean lasagna, grocery shop, workout, paint your nails, spend hours at Target, keep your man happy *wink wink*, blog AND make money at the same time.
Why? Because we’re women and we’re amazing and we don’t need a newspaper to validate us.
We have each other.
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