I am seeing a spate of articles about mommy bloggers these days. These are mostly about how the bloggers’ children are none too happy when they learn how to read and navigate the internet and discover moom’s blog. “Why are pictures of me plastered all over the internet?” “Why did you write about me pooping/vomiting/throwing a tantrum/whatever when I was two?” “Why did you put [sensitive story about me] on the internet?”

Quiiiite a while back, there were a lot of mommy bloggers out on them thar tubes. I stalked a bunch of them. I’m not sure when the mommy bloggers got started but I discovered them after I began my blahg in 2003. I loved reading their stories and enjoyed looking at pictures of their lives. Voyeuristic? Maybe, although I think that word particularly refers to watching sexual stuff. My interest was totally benign. I simply enjoyed peeking into other people’s lives. How are these young women raising their children? Are they struggling with the same problems I did? (Of course! And often worse.) Yes they were strangers. But it *is* the internet and if you post something, there is at least a chance that Other People Will See It. Better meeee than a child porn enthusiast? I always wondered what these people would do when their kids got old enough to read and navigate the internet and discovered themselves all over the momosphere.

I never considered myself a mommy blogger. When I started my blahg, one of my kids was in college, the other in high school. Both of them could drive if I’m doing the math accurately. I began my blahg because Mouse and I went to the moomincabin for a few weeks and I didn’t want to have to talk on the phone every night. My early posts were little snippets like “Grandaddy patrolled the Old Road and parts of the beach”, hilarious descriptions of my parents fighting the weekly Garbage Fight, and The Comm discussing how to cook a bat (yes really) with Radical Betty and Bubs. The point was to say, “here I am, I am well, we are having fun, no reason to talk on the phone tonight”. Yes, you are wishing I would go back to that snippety style of posting 🐽🐽🐽 (hee hee, I had to explain to the GG today what the pig nose emoji was used for, at least within our little family texting groups).

I can’t say I have never posted an embarrassing pic of my kids or told a borderline non-PC story about them. I’m sure I have and if so I am sorry. But the beach urchins were never my focus. They were well into forming their adult lives by then and I tried very hard to make the blahg about *me* and my own misadventures. If I told a story about a long-ago toddler having a tantrum, I tried to give the kid the benefit of the doubt and focus on the unfortunate circumstances that precipitated the tantrum and what *I* had done wrong. Teenage snark was a similar thing. I loved when they eye-rolled or made sarcastic comebacks at me (actually one of my kids was already doing that by the age of two or so, I’ll letchyall guess who 🐽). I knew that they were practicing for adulthood and were questioning authority, which is a good thing, at least in my book. They’ve turned out pretty darn well, in my opinion, little thanks to my parenting skills.

Only a few of the mommy bloggers I used to “know” are still around. I will continue on with my own navel gazing into the foreseeable future. I can because I was never focused on my kids. I also don’t care a fig about making money from my blahg or how many readers I have. I love to write but I know that am a rank amateur in every way. Well, almost every way. I am PDG at writing functional specifications for the online banking software my team supports. But that “gig” pays the “rent” (plus it is fun!).

P.S. I do not fault the mommy bloggers for anything. I know why they blogged about their kids. They loved them, they were proud of them, and they found a community out there. The World Wide Web and blogging platforms were Shiny New Objects. If it had been easy to post pics of your kids on the internet when my kids were small, I’d’ve prob’ly been doing it too.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 12th, 2019 at 7:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.