Last week, Dooce defended mommybloggers.
But I guess there are some people who are very uncomfortable with the fact that I and many other women are writing about our children on our websites. How dare we violate your privacy like this, how dare we endanger you like this, we obviously care more about ad revenue than what this is going to do to your adolescence....
Am I violating your privacy? If keeping 95 percent of what goes on in your life off limits in terms of what I write on my website, then yes, I am totally invading your privacy. And what about that time I wrote about your poop, aren't you going to be mortified when your classmates read about that in sixth grade? Leta, I stopped writing about your poop many, many months ago, and chances are that all the kids you're going to know in sixth grade will have spent the first three years of their lives shitting their pants, too. Oh wait, THAT'S WHAT HUMANS DO. WHO KNEW.
Finally, I've seen it suggested in my inbox and by various critics online that what we do on our websites is egotistical and exploitative. Some even refer to it as child abuse. I know I am not alone when I say that when I sit down to update my website I do it to connect with other people, I do it to reflect on the absurdity of everyday life with the hope that the people who read it will find similarities in their own routine. I did not know that wanting to be a part of a community qualified as egotism.
... Leta, some people will one day try to convince you that what I've done here is some sort of sickening betrayal of your childhood, and what those people fail to recognize is that I am doing the exact opposite. This is the glorification of your childhood, and even more than that this is a community of women coming together to make each other feel less alone. You are a part of this movement, you and all of the other kids whose mothers are sitting at home right now writing tirelessly about their experiences as mothers, the love and frustration and madness of it all. And I think one day you will look at all of this and pump your fist in the air.
I mommyblog at least once a week here at 11D, but I'm too shallow to concentrate on any one issue on this blog. (Note to people who want to make cash and fame from blogging. Do not do what I do. Be consistent. Or else people will offer you opportunities to syndicate your blog and then take back the offer, because you're all over the place.)
I do the mommyblogging for a couple reasons. Those posts may be the only ones that I will print out and give to my kids some day. I loved our talk about Voter ID laws. It might inspire a longer post elsewhere or an academic paper, but I probably won't print it out and save it in a nice binder. The mommy stuff might be worth saving. The official family record. (Though I may end up deleting the posts about Ian's speech problems.)
I also get off on the politics of it. I think that parenting is undervalued as a profession. I think that mommyblogs tells the world, "I spent 4 hours getting a kid a haircut and 8 hours doing a stupid school project and I work damn hard. Damnit. When I need to leave work early to go to a school conference, I'm not going off to play. I'm doing more work". I think the mommyblogs also shows how we are better people because we have kids, and spawning is a worthwhile pursuit. Damnit.
The problem with my radical parenting blog scenario is that few non-parents read parenting blogs. And if they do, it's only to scoff and mock. They don't read enough to get it. Well, Dooce seems to be satisfied with the community of parents that come out of the mommyblogs. I would have preferred bigger social change.
Update: More from Geeky Mom.
