A few months ago a boy from my freshman ward asked if he could interview me for a paper he was writing on mommy bloggers. I thought: Who knew that he knew I still had a blog. And when did I become a mommy blogger?
I hadn't ever thought of myself as a "mommy-blogger." I started the blog the day before I moved out for college. Motherhood was probably the last thing on my mind then. I still think the term is a little big on me. Mommy bloggers seem more serious than I am. If they took a 7 day internet hiatus, they would have guest posts and giveaways scheduled to make up for it.
But I guess I am. Or I have become one. In a small way. I guess I'm still discovering what my relationship with mommy blogging is.
The article made a few points that stuck out to me. The first was that blogging about motherhood is a radical act because motherhood is seen as part of this private domestic sphere that women occupy.
By engaging in the constant sharing of experiences, mothers are creating a community through the intimate moments in their homes. Like I said in my post about the new public forum, I think that the act of sharing stories is empowering and important.
The article talked about the skewed representations of motherhood that used to propagate the media and how blogging has changed that. Lopez quoted a woman as saying:
We’re redefining the roles with our blogs. The messages we get aboutI like that. Because for me, it's true. I read about mother's experiences (and loads of other things as well...) everyday on the internet. Yes, it can sometimes be glamorized and maybe it's edited down to only the really pretty parts at times, but for the most part, I feel like I read about women who are trying day in and day out to do a good job at what matters most to them.
motherhood typically either comes [sic] to us in sanitized or idealized form
(television shows, magazine articles) or sensationalized (newspapers). There’s
nothing in the in-between because the in-between doesn’t have a hook, an
angle; it doesn’t sell. So that’s what we’re dealing in here. The unexciting, every
day, in between stuff. But in doing that, we’re also delving into new territory.
Into radical territory, I think.
I think blogging is making mothers matter more. Or, it's making mothers feel like we matter. And that matters.
1 comment:
Paige, I really liked this post. Thanks for sharing! I think it does make us feel like we matter more, and I do think it's important to share a little bit of our lives like this.
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