on mommybloggings

Before I begin, I thought you’d like to know that MS Word is urging me to change my “mommyblogger” (obviously a typo!) to “mommy logger” (so clearly an actual phrase! That anyone has used before! EVER!). How very helpful.

Yesterday, Dane suggested that I need to make a more concerted effort to tell all the real-life people we know about the blog (yes, this one). “You’re writing about our kids,” he said. “People like our kids.” I was a teensy bit horrified.

Because in my mind, the blog is about me (really in my mind everything is about me, but that’s a topic for some other day). Certainly the kids figure in. That tends to happen, especially when they’re little. Clearly the blog is public, being on the internet and all, and I’m cool with anyone who wants to read, reading.

But it feels a little silly to track down people who like to hang with our kids just to say, “Hey! Melissa blogs!” when I mean to be writing about mothering, not about the kids' experience of being mothered. (Obviously if you’re still reading at this point, you probably do like me just fine. But if you’re holding out in hope of more about the kids, email me. I’ll get you set up with access to my flickr account instead. All kids, all the time! No pesky me to get in the way!)

When I explained all this, Dane just looked at me like I was nuts. Which I probably am. But in addition to being nuts, I thought I was pointing out a valid distinction.

Then the always-insightful Liz at Mom-101 posted her thoughts on “mommybloggings”—that is, on there being more than one type of mommyblogger. And my muddled thoughts were momentarily cleared.

Obviously there are as many ways to blog as a mother as there are ways to be a mother. Sure, okay. But Liz identifies two categories of mother-bloggers that sum up quite a bit of what’s out there: some are writers who also have kids and blogs (and tend to not so much love the ‘mommyblogger’ label), while others use blogs for community-building (and tend to embrace mommyblogdom).

Right. That all sounds good. But which kind of blog am I writing, really?

I would love to claim a space in the writerly group (and I think that’s what I was trying to explain to Dane with my horrified expression), but I don’t think I’m quite there yet. It’s not like everything is all diapers and breasts and do NOT eat your sister! around here. (Well, it is around HERE, where I live, but not around here, where I write.) Though there is a lot about laundry. And there are kid anecdotes. And I really do want to connect with people.

There’s hardly ever anything resembling theme, unless in some alternate universe “What I Did Today” qualifies as theme. Often when I have something to SAY, I sit down to write and look up again thousands of words later and realize, whoops! Not so much a blog post there! That’s probably meant to be an essay! Or a book chapter, for goodness sake (concision never was my strong suit). Instead of paring down, I just write something else; and so it is that posts actually appearing on the blog tend to be a bit lighter.

So what AM I doing here? Am I a mommyblogger, in the community- and family-oriented sense of the word? Or am I a mother who blogs? Maybe what I am isn’t quite yet all that I want to be. Maybe I’m willing to be the former, but am also striving to be the latter. Maybe it doesn’t matter much; clearly there is room for a plethora of voices falling along the continuum of mommybloggings, and there seem to be readers willing to tolerate my attempts along the way.

About those things, I am thankful. And not a bit horrified.

[technorati tags: mommyblogger, mommybloggings]