Why I Blog

These excerpts are from a wonderful article "The Secret Life of Mothers" by Andrea Buchanan. This article expresses better than I could why I write this blog.

"The proliferation of shared experience as seen in these blogs is a powerful way to unite women who might not otherwise feel as though they had anything in common. These are the invisible mothers becoming visible before our eyes, these are the silenced voices slowly beginning to articulate what their literary grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers gave voice to in texts from 30 years ago (Erma Bombeck) to 150 years ago (Fanny Fern). These are real mothers turning to literature -- endeavoring to create literature -- to make sense of the secret world they have discovered, where it turns out, in fact, that we can't have it all and do it all, and that the walls we thought had been knocked down prove to be strikingly resistant when we -- suddenly, surprisingly -- bang our heads against them. These are real mothers struggling to create a narrative out of the often disjointed, complex, and simultaneously occurring events of their lives."

"She couldn't see it, but her own comments answered the primary question she raised: I write about such private things in a relatively public place because sharing my experience as a mother-in-process, as a mother continually learning and evaluating and questioning and contextualizing and theorizing and evolving, may touch someone. It may touch someone who is in a similar emotional place, or in similar circumstances, such as the readers who write me to tell me that what they read makes them feel less alone."

"Blogs in their individuality -- the way they are dominated by a single voice, the way they enforce a lack of community or consensus as they are focused on the experience of one person -- might seem to undermine the work of creating a unified experience of feminism. But in fact, in allowing marginalized voices to have a presence, to be heard -- or, in this case, read -- I believe they function in the exact opposite way. Mothers who go online are finding a multiplicity of viewpoints, a real and humanized investigation of the complex and varied ways in which we mother, and mothers who recognize themselves in the writings of these mother-bloggers feel valid. They feel heard. And they feel empowered."

I also do this to jot down thoughts that I have to prove to myself that I do, in fact, still have them. Sometimes I wonder after being a SAHM for the last 2 1/2 years... I don't have many opportunities for intellectual pursuits during the course of the day (memorizing the words to Sponge Bob's theme song doesn't count as an intellectual pursuit!). I do have to have somewhere to go to vent and brag and tell these stories and share these thoughts and just be me--somewhere I'm not on duty. For me the motivation to write all this stuff down in a paper journal or word doc just wasn't there. The chance to reach out and share with others who may be of a like mind, or share some of these experiences or who just want to debate is why I do it, why I have gotten so into it. I know my husband worries about privacy, and I do respect his concerns. I don't want a cyber stalker or anything like that. But what I need is an outlet to releave some of this isolation I sometimes feel. After all, sometimes months go by when I don't leave the house except to get the mail (and that doesn't really count because my feet stay inside--I just open the door and grab it). Anyway, that is my confession. That is why I blog.