I am in the same coffee cup shaped boat as Nina. The stuff I enjoyed about being at blogher was the same stuff that motivates me to blog in the first place; the talking and listening and community making. Can I html code? Not without superhuman effort. Is it good or bad to email someone higher on the ladder and ask them to link to you? I never wondered about it before. So, the sessions were interesting, thought provoking and even fun, but for me the real content was all milling about in the hallways, balancing coffee on those fucking binders that didn’t fit in the free bag. I’ll shut up about the bags.
I want to say, now that I don’t have a microphone invisibly sucking out my ability to form a sentence (though I am really tired this morning, and just typing is a bit of a chore in itself), that ‘mommy’ bloggers are, or can be, political. I think it’s important to tell people that being a parent is hard. That sometimes (when the children are gleefully pushing your buttons while you try to get an entire bag of uncooked rice out of the burners on the stove while wearing your pajamas at 11:45 am and the mailman comes to the door and your child answers naked with scissors in one hand and a popsicle in the other, or usually in less extreme cases), the ‘reward’ of parenting seems puny or elusive or non-existent. It’s important to let people know that being a parent is more about learning than instinct. Really, I think most of my instincts about it are wrong, because my instinct is telling me to give it whatever it wants so that it will not shriek at me. (right now, Sophie is licking me. and the computer mouse) The reason it is so vital to tell this truth is that many women who feel this way, who don’t feel like they are maternal or able or competent, think that they are doing something wrong. It is so much easier to cope with feeling inadequate when you discover that you aren’t inadequate, but you are a real, normal parent. And once you feel that way, parenting gets easier and healthier because you are now free to focus on what works instead of hating yourself and questioning every decision you make.
I have to get the whole famdamily to a birthday party in an hour. We have to make two trips because the new van won’t be ours till tomorrow night.
Thanks for the link love, my dear, and you have it exactly right, and beautifully expressed. So glad to have met you!
Oh, well said ! It is political as hell for women to talk in public about being parents.
Here’s a fun random thought. Rewriting all the Little House books from Caroline’s point of view. Think how in book one, in the Big Woods, how she has the days divided into the different main kinds of work. And how isolated she is even though they have neighbors and relatives not too far away. We could make a hilarious mommyblog for poor Caroline!
When Caroline swears on her blog, would it be shocking stuff like using the word “devil” or “gol-durned” or would she be super foul mouthed?
Poor Ma Ingalls. My only guess is that she was too fucking tired to complain. Even reading the books wears me out. Also, I constantly hold her up as a shiny model of motherhood and that is guaranteed to make me feel like crap. WWMID? (what would ma ingalls do?)
Do you think that “Oh, Charles” was code for “all of you shut the fuck up and show me the respect that I deserve!!”
I keep forgetting that this is no longer ‘anonymous.’ I’m going to be so so sorry about that language in forty years. (Joke people. injoke. I’m sure the story will surface somewhere soon if not already)
Ha! All that about Laura Ingalls and the crotchety mofo chiding us cussing mommies to clean up our acts and provide an example to the rest of the world. I was so close to him; I could have totally taken him down.
Jen, what an honor and pleasure to meet you. I felt such warmth and near-giddiness in your company and was taken by your sense of gravity, keen mind, and knowing smile.
And the magnet buttons! Whoa, whoa, whoa! I’ll be taking a pic of it today and will tell the world that you will be in charge of crafts from now on.
Your fan,
GraceD
Your rice in the burners image made me laugh! I’m so happy to have met you at Blogher. I love our little online playgroup and wouldn’t trade it for all the technorati links in the world.