Mommy blogging is best achieved when Moms spend a small portion of their day talking about the 1% of the day that makes them happy/sad/angry/frustrated/proud/thoughtful. Mommy bloggers, like any other type of writer besides Virginia Woolf while writing Mrs. Dalloway, write about the unusual parts of their days, the interesting moments.
If you’re raising little kids the interesting moments will have a lot to do with excrement, sleep, lack of sleep and changing relationships. When the kids are school aged we talk a lot about nurturing them, guarding them and how to get away from them. As they move into adolescence we talk about the kids less because if wrote about my children’s puberty I’m pretty sure there would be an uprising I’m unprepared to handle.
Recently Gawker ran an article with a lot of salient points. It demonstrated that a blogger was hiding behind “it’s for the children” when attempting to get a billboard of men almost kissing off of the Cahuenga Pass. The problem with the article, which was otherwise spot on was the title followed by the first two sentences:
Mommy Bloggers Need to Shut Up About This Dirty Gay Billboard
Is there anything worse than mommy bloggers? That is a rhetorical question because if you have two firing synapses, you know the answer to that question.
Really? Is the web that worried about Mommy Bloggers? How does a 23 year old hipster come to read a Mommy Blog anyhow?
I went to Google Plus to ask:
I’m working on a post about why young male bloggers seem to hate mom bloggers.
I’d love input from as many people as possible and if you would like a link please leave that in your comment as well.
Thanks so much.
I got a lot of answers but this one was the most comprehensive and seems like it accurately reflected the thoughts of most of the young men.
Oh man, I could say a lot about this, haha. Okay, I’m a young guy, have always been very tech savvy, and proud of it. For me, the internet has always been the place to get away from motherly advice and hang out with my hip, young friends and fellow geeks.
When mom bloggers are all over, it feels like my mom showed up at the bar and tried to sit with me and my friends.
I know it sounds stupid, but mom bloggers are just not cool.
Interestingly a few Mom Bloggers jumped into the conversation and started getting angry at the folks who had responded, but I’d framed the question in such a manner that the responses really did have to be negative.
If you aren’t in the middle of parenting maybe we’re not for you? What are your thoughts? Should Mommy Bloggers just ignore the Gawkers of the world?
Jessica Gottlieb is a Mom Blogger in Los Angeles who can also be seen wagging her finger at Momversation.
Good post. I mean, it’s hard enough to be cool when you’re a mother. When the kids are little, they think you’re the bomb, but most likely you’re wearing a t-shirt with someone else’s breakfast or fingerprints adding to the pattern. (And you’re usually the last one to catch this.) The kids get older and maybe you find the wherewithal to get your eyebrows waxed or wear something a little more put together, but then your kids are teens and some days they really do have a certain disdain for you. It’s okay because they have to in order to individuate and all that stuff, but it can be hard on the ego. Try writing about all of this to prove to yourself and the world that you do have thoughts and a brain and good ideas and you’re labelled a “mommy blogger.” This title carries its own baggage. But maybe the 20 somethings are still caught up in the disdain and haven’t come around yet to recognizing their mothers as real, fully formed people who exist outside of grocery shopping and laundry.
Viva la mommy blogger! (At least until we have a cooler name.)
It doesn’t really bother me because I don’t care about the opinions of young males. Most “mommy bloggers” aren’t looking for a young, male audience anyways. So I ignore and move on.
Jessica,
First off, good post. This is an interesting topic that I don’t think has been really addressed in depth much, but I like that you’re taking it so diplomatically.
Just to come clean, I’m the one who left the comment that Jessica decided to publish. For the record, I don’t hate moms who blog or anything irrational like that. The internet gives everyone a voice – for better or for worse – and I’m sure plenty of people who enjoy mom blogs would find mine boring. That’s fine by me, we aren’t really competing for the same eyeballs anyway.
I don’t know if the web as a whole hates mom bloggers, but my impression as a 23 year old, single male is that they don’t have much content that I identify with. I love my mother and we have a good relationship, but it’s honestly hard for us to connect our interests much (besides cooking, which I do love).
She’s just figuring out how to use Facebook and if she had a blog, it would be full of “motherly advice” that I would likely not have need for and “look at what happened to me today” type stories. At the same time, she doesn’t understand why I blog to promote my personal brand, offer advice to other young entrepreneurs, and make new professional connections. The stuff I write is just as useless to her as the stuff that she would write.
So, to a guy like me, who’s not interested in mom bloggers, having them pop up all over my news feed or leave needless comments on my blog would be like having my mom walk into a bar and sit with my friends and me – just not cool. The good news is that unlike a bar, I’m perfectly able to unfollow or decircle anyone I find uninteresting, just like the mom bloggers are free to do towards me.
Anyway, I’ve written way too much for one comment already. If any readers want me to clarify, I’ll be keeping an eye on the thread.
Perhaps some of these mom bloggers who comment on your blog are divorced predatory cougars. This can be quite terrifying for young men in the blossom of manhood. A vagina, after all, is a labyrinth from whence some men never return. Watch your back!
The term ‘mommy bloggers’ sounds a little fluffy in my opinion. I am a blogger who happens to be a mom. Even if I didn’t blog, I still wouldn’t want to be defined by just my ability to produce offspring – which I am pretty good at as a matter of fact. (Everyone needs a hobby.)
Personally, I don’t really feel like writing about my kids on my blog because I’m inundated with them enough already. I don’t want to bore anyone to tears along with me.
I used to be able to kick it with the young dudes at the bar back in the day, but don’t worry, I won’t be trying to crash anyone’s party ‘mommy style’ these days.
@karl- I completely understand your comment. I am so glad my mom is not on Facebook sometimes!
My bro is in social media, and I’d dropped a couple mommy blogs for him to look at for one reason or another, but not a lot, because it’s just not his thing. And I understand that. We read totally different things.
Being part of the ‘mommy blogger’ club can be the same as the ‘mom’ club being one instantly makes you a member, regardless of your choices on blogging, parenting, or likewise.
I am not really a reader of many other blogs- and I should be. But there are SO many.That’s what’s so great. There are so many, you can have just what you want.
There’ is such a bad stereotype against ‘mommy bloggers’ anyway, with it as a term that is not specifically defined and often considered a group of women who just do product reviews and talk about kids- that would be the battle to fight, if there was one.
But for me, anyone who spews hate and only quotes part of a blog- they’re just ignorant.
Anyone who doesn’t have a child does not understand the position that mom was coming from with that billboard.
I would think that young men have better things to do then spending their time reading mommy blogs. It makes sense to just ignore the hipster comments because they tend to have little to contribute to the conversation. If they are not interested in the mommy blogs, then don’t read them.
It’s who your audience is and that could encompass many different types of people. For myself, my primary interests on Google+ are: Android, Chrome and Google and most of the people in my circles have some relationship with. However, I also have photographers even though I have limited interest in the topic, I have some astronauts and have no interest in that, and anyone who posts compelling content of some kind, such as yourself. I don’t believe that we have similar interests. I listen to death and thrash metal and you most likely, have zero inclination to have a discussion about that. However, I have found most of your posts to be interesting and you to come across as authentic with integrity and to me, this is all that really matters.
For me, mothers use the Web just like the rest of us and they can be extremely valuable contributors, but if they should post about their children all the time, that would not interest me, but I also know this is not the extent of what they have to offer as well. I’m unconcerned with any coolness factor. One of the many great things about going through a graduate program is understanding just how much value people from various backgrounds and experience can bring to you.
Do I have several young male tech bloggers in my circles? Absolutely, and I also have more than a few bloggers in my circles that happen to be mothers as well, and I am proud of every single person in my circles ( I have far fewer in my circles than people who have me in theirs), because every single one of them posts relevant content. I am fairly selective with who I circle because I want a highly concentrated level of engagement and you cannot have this effectively if you have too many people in your circles.
This is why that one jerk who emailed you was so offensive to me. In any case, I thought your share was great and brought about some discussion and that’s what a good post should do.
Keep blogging. Your audience is listening.
Also, please take a look at this post of one young male tech blogger, Joshua Munoz. He is a great example of a young male blogger who has head screwed on right. One of my favorite people on Google+.
http://www.joshuamunoz.com/exercising-compassion/