Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Mommy Bloggers

Dear Mommy Blogger,
In as much as the blogging industry has turned to "All about Mommies and Mommy Issues," at 52 I still remain a woman waiting for grandchildren and interested in your blogging world but far enough removed from it to give a little holler to you and tell you that life will return to normal again.  In this picture it shows the child sitting there while the mommy is on the computer.  As a child I am glad that I didn't have to wait for the cell phone to not be in use, the computer to not be in use, the pinterest to not be capturing my mom's attention and the iPad to not be in use.  I also am not missing getting up from the sofa and turning down the commercials for my grandmother who didn't like listening to them.  Running to the rotary phone and  dialing instead of pushing buttons, shifting gears in my car on my first driver lesson from my parents, competing with kids for use of the tv, changing radio stations or putting cotton in my ears from different desires in music, using a cell phone to find out where my kid is, wondering why my kid is inside of the house instead of outside playing with friends, scanning the Internet for gluten-free products or vegan foods for my kids who refuse to eat or can't eat what the family eats, fighting the Dr's for vaccinating my kids and a whole lot more stress that you seem to blog about.  Granted, I use this blog for my own personal venting, joys, triumphs, product reviews, sharing about my family and friends, Avon products, talking about my dog, showing pictures of the foods my husband and I make together and so I have a whole different world from you.

But the fighting and competing about raising kids, working moms vs stay at home moms, coupon moms vs non coupon moms, single moms vs moms with partners and lifestyles and all the other arguments, problems with children exposed verbatim and pictures of kids who have done wrong at home exposed, whose blog is the best in this area and that area...  it gives me a headache!  There's some on the Internet about this:

The Rise of The Mommy Blogger [INFOGRAPHIC]
Mommy Wars
Watch Me Break Mommy Blogger Commandment #1


Two posts about this that I really love:
Mommy Monster
Momma’, Walk Humbly with Thy God

the rest you can "google" because this is a small point here.





We BABY BOOMERS are all grown up now and having grandchildren and offering a hand of help (if you will) to encourage you, soften the blows, listen, be enlightened, learn, share, grow with you, etc...  because your world is way different than the world in which we grew up.  Please try to get off that computer the next time you find that you feel all alone and helpless and bake something, take a kid or two with you in the bedroom and read together... real books not Kindles or Nooks, or make a cheap craft together, start writing a book together, record (oops, there are no more tape recorders), create a song together, do homework together, teach other make up tips, or look for some of us "empty nester bloggers" online and see how we came through your period of time and ask for our help if you can't ask your own mom or mother in law.  We are not so far removed from you that we can't understand what you are going through because we've been there!

5 comments:

Missy Aggravation said...

I'm one of those 'single' mom's you mention and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this post!

Everything you say is so true, even if I can't remove myself completely from it.

Thanks for sharing!

http://aggravation-station.blogspot.ca

John Mullin said...

Make you stop and think, just how much of the "Generation Gap" is really a result of technology change?

Debi@The Spring Mount 6 Pack said...

I think there is a difference from the Mommy Bloggers who are just online and the ones who it is their income because it is their way to work from home and be with their kids. I think their can be a happy balance. I know there is in my house. Which is why it is 11:40 at night and I am online working.

Diane said...

I can say that when a PR person emails me and it starts with "Dear Mommy Blogger" it is almost instantly deleted. Obviously they just assumed because I am a woman, that I am a mommy blogger. Also, it means they haven't read my about me page, or my blog at all, where it is pretty obvious I don't have any kids.

I've seen studies reported in the news where there is less and less eye contact and manners since the rise of the internet. Sometimes it seems like technology has made our lives more difficult because we are so stressed out!

Carolyn M said...

I think it's absolutely sad that at 11pm at night a mother is working on a blog to make money for the family. Something seems so wrong about that. At 11pm I'm in bed with my husband and we're watching the news and going to sleep soon. I don't understand where blogging has become a mother's way of income through all this couponing and PR stuff as a job. It would seem to me that there's an awful lot of pressure to get on your blog and then all the fun that should be there of doing it is gone. It becomes a chore to work on your blog. Sad... And I totally agree with Diane about the PR approaches. I won't do certain programs and PR that has been offered to me because I can't back up the product, it's too fattening and bad for your health, or it taste horrible... looks bad on a person... and I'm not going to turn my blog into a place of advertisement for someone else's use. This is my happy time. No one is going to make money off of me. And I'm not going to make money off of anyone else. I don't switch to WP yet because of the pressure that I see from so many to put ads on their site to pay for things. Maybe when I switch to WP I will have a change of heart but at this point, my blog is a ministry and with that means I don't profit from it. The Lord and other people do.

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