Monday, July 26, 2010

What It Is

I'm definitely conflicted about my decision to write what might very easily be categorized as a parenting blog. In the interest of full disclosure, I'll admit right now to being a default hater of all things contemporary yuppie parenting and, as far as I'm concerned, writing a parenting blog is as quintessentially contemporary yuppie parent as it gets.

My great disdain is, of course, a fallacy. There are plenty of nifty trends and gadgets and consumables and communities and perfectly nice people that come out of this culture. Again in the interest of full disclosure, I am currently shopping for a used Ergo even though we own a used Baby Bjorn (baby girl's grown too big for it) and a Moby wrap (I can't wrap her onto my back without assistance). Considering my family of two adults and one baby will soon have three baby carriers, who am I to judge?

Still, the whole blog thing is a real eye-roller for me. Sure, I'm a writer with a degree in Women's Studies and a history of social activism who recoils at the idea of joining a parenting group and really just wants some quiet time to myself so I can nurture good creative habits and process the more mystifying experiences of my full-time parenthood .... all of which make this blog an almost natural choice.

But I want to be clear about my goals from the inset. My intention is not to document my daughter's youth nor my own parenthood. It is not to rely on this forum as my sole writing practice or my primary source of dialogue and wisdom-sharing between friends and strangers. I do hope that all these things happen organically to some extent, but my main reason for starting this blog is to empower myself as a cultural critic. More and more, I feel the need to shore myself up against certain elements of society that say and do the darnedest things to those of us raising kids. I guess you could say that my goal here is mental health.

Speaking of which, I'm going to go watch that new episode of Mad Men and eat pizza with my partner, who upon hearing that I'm actually going through with this blog said, "Oh good! I thought you'd chicken out." Sigh, me too.

2 comments:

  1. I love your blog so far. In fact it is the closest thing I have seen so far to the blog I have been trying to start writing.

    "I feel the need to shore myself up against certain elements of society that say and do the darnedest things to those of us raising kids." - exactly

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  2. I admit to having a "mommy blog," established initially to compartmentalize my excitement at being pregnant as separate from my "me" identity and continued to keep family and friends abreast of said child's development. And now I like it as a way to document his life -- a baby book in the extreme I guess. But I like how you said this, and I do often find myself writing, "I know a lot of people..but I...". Look forward to reading, Lauren.

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