Monday, March 28, 2011

The most common irritating response to: "I write a mommy-blog"

Ha!  Ha!  Your kids are sure going to need therapy when they grow up!  Ha!
Ha.  Ha.  Aha.  Ha. 

Yes.  They might.  But I'll let you in on a little not-so secret.  I'm the child of two non-bloggin' therapists.  And I've been known to partake in some therapy now and again.  (Find me someone who isn't in some way carrying one trauma or another from their raising, and I'll find you a liar-liar-pants-on-fire).  

The aforementioned ha-ha gets me (well, in addition to the fact that it's not actually, you know, funny)because, letting you in on a bigger not-so-secret: This blog is not meant to be about my children at all.   I DO talk a lot about motherhood,  what that means for me, how it morphs and changes, how it has shifted and shaken my foundations, how it has made me struggle and grow and grow some more.  The key word in all of that is me.  This blog is meant to be about me.  This is entirely purposeful.   The first and most fundamental reason for this being: oh dear god, I need space for me.  Somewhere.  Space where I can say what I want, be who I want, swear, vent, delight in and otherwise explore my thoughts and process.  Space where I can be selfish and unapologetic and honest.  Just space.  It isn't perfect.  It isn't uninterrupted.  But it's mine.

I do talk about my kids - their successes and challenges (and my challenges and successes in the raising of them).  I try very hard to do so mostly in generalities, as opposed to the specifics of their lives.  My goal is to keep the nitty gritty details, the really private stuff, out of bounds.  Part of the reason for keeping the focus firmly on my process, is that they can't tell me yet what is and isn't okay to share about them, their selves, their lives.  One of the funniest blogs I ever wrote (in my humble opinion) was about one of Boy-o's trips to the doctor.  I subsequently deleted it, because in hindsight, even though L. and others disagreed with me, I felt it was just too personal.   So I guess maybe the ha ha is annoying in part because it assumes that I write about my children without considering the consequences.  I do not.  As with everything else in my life, I can assure you, I think (and worry) about it too much.

Moreover - sometimes I wonder if this whole, pervasive 'mommy bloggers are invading their children's privacy by writing about their lives' business is just an extension of maintaining the ideology of the 'good mother.'  Good mothers put up and shut up.  They put their own needs last.  Always.  They don't talk about it being hard.  They don't talk about the days when children more closely resemble monsters than darlings.  They don't talk about how many times a month they think about tendering their resignations.  And they certainly don't talk about negative or conflicting maternal emotions.  The good mother script.  It's a killer.  Still.

So yup.  I'm a mama.  And a mommyblogger.  I care about my kids.  And I care about me too. 

And you know what?  It's my job to do my best to pay for their therapy later on, whether it's blog related or not.

2 comments:

  1. My blog is all about me, too. I talk about almost anything. And everything. Including my kids.

    My kids are old enough to retaliate by having their own blogs, however.

    They both read mine.

    Therapy?
    Dunno.

    But you're right. We've all got scars. Whether we choose to show them is up to us.

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  2. I would have loved it if my parents had kept a blog or some other type of written record of my childhood, besides the 20-page baby books. Even if it included stuff I might be embarrassed about now. That's why I blog about my kids. I do it for myself and I also do it because I hope that someday it'll be something they're glad to have, like I would be if my parents had done it.

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