This past weekend, the New York Times published a snarky article about mommy bloggers headlined
“Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand.”
The story, published in the Style section, ostensibly addresses a real issue: the perceived conflict between mommy blogging and commerce.
In doing so, however, the writer offers a snide and condescending tone, behind which lurks negative implications that mommy bloggers might be in it just for the freebies -- and, more dangerously, that they’re sidelining their children in the process.
As a mom blogger in Los Angeles, who wrote a story in January for L.A. Moms Blog with a curiously similar headline, “Don’t Bother Me, Honey. I’m too Busy Blogging About You,” I’m here to defend my fellow moms.
I also would like examine what I think is a cynical and insidious attempt to create a 21st-century extension of the so-called “Mommy Wars” -- that is, the lose-lose debate about who’s better, stay-at-home moms or working moms. Now, apparently, that category has been widened to include blogging moms who get recognized by large companies.
The headline alone would be a curious coincidence if not for the fact that the story, written by Slate columnist and self-proclaimed mom blogger Jennifer Mendelsohn, quotes one of my fellow L.A. Moms Blog contributors, Ciaran Blumenfeld. She or a Times editor must have checked out LAMomsBlog.com and noticed my headline. The main difference: They added a not-so-subtle implication that we mom bloggers are also harming our children in the process of writing and garnering attention from people outside of our own homes.
Which begs the question: Is the Times trying to have it both ways, attacking a group by using one of its own, or is it a guilt-laden attempt by a writer to somehow separate herself from a community she also wants to be a part of -- and reap the benefits from as well? (She discloses she has a blog but ironically refuses to name it or link to it. It’s “Clever Title TK,” by the way.)
This is also another kind of attack -- moms vs. other women -- or else they would bully other bloggers as well. What about moms who blog not about motherhood but instead about books, food or entertainment? They also receive comps, as do their childless peers, but where is that backlash?
(The New York Times is not alone in its digs at mom bloggers. The Los Angeles Times -- a paper that recently has been criticized for publishing an ethically questionable faux Page 1 with an advertisement for film “Alice in Wonderland” emblazoned across the front -- also has contributed to the conversation.)
I and other moms I know are dedicated parents who use our voices in a public forum. These are the same women who also write about changing exploding diapers, wiping urine and other bodily fluids off of the floor and themselves as they attempt to potty-train their offspring. They also ask for support and guidance when bravely tackling the challenges of raising autistic kids or dealing with death -- sometimes the worst kind, of their own child.
