The Mom-o-sphere

I recently posted my 100^th blog entry. Yep, I did. I have been writing here for about two years now. And, it just seems like the right point in time to take a step back and evaluate why. Why do I write this blog? What is it I am trying to accomplish? Who am I writing this for, anyway?

I think the answers to this question have evolved. This blog began to share a bit about what happens in my little family with extended family and friends. But, over these two years, I must admit, it has taken a more personal tone. It has, for me, become less about just posting events and happenings and more of a repository for my thoughts. It is more about me.

Yet, it is still a “mom blog.” It is about me, but in the role of mother and from the perspective of my family. This is not the blog of a writer or a political hack. It is not about current events or recipes or crafts, although I throw those things in too. It is just about me as a mom. Which makes me wonder: what is up with the “mom blog” anyway?

There has been a good amount written in mainstream media about the emergence of “mom blogs.” The successes of those who turn writing about their off-spring into a profitable enterprise; the risks of exposing too much personal data on-line; the elusive drive for so many moms to engage this electronic platform.

As a “mom blogger” (a title I innately shun – why should my writing be defined by my relationship to my children, by my role as a mother? Those who read this blog regularly will not be surprised at my trepidation here and will note the same pride and self-delusions related to my youth that I have displayed at in previous posts. See the mini-van or Obama stories. Still, I must confess that since what I do all day, every day is be a mom, and what I write about is just what I do and think about, it pretty much all revolves around some aspect of mom-hood. I guess, once again, I should just embrace this statement of the obvious and move on.), I have considered this question of motivation and reward. Why do we, why do I, choose to engage in this forum?

Potential answers are countless.

Perhaps it is some form of expositionism, a need for a moment of glory or public acknowledgment.

Maybe it fills a similar role for moms as Facebook does for teens. Constant connection and self-promotion. Maybe we all seek our own, however limited, sense of celebrity status. We want to believe the public, some public, is as concerned with what we are doing, where we are eating or shopping, what is on our schedule, or the antics of our children as they are with the “Brangelinas” of our day.

There are plenty of blogs out there that seem to provide a needed self-esteem boost for moms. They’re the modern brag pages. They include the beauty, the accomplishment, the creativity and acquisitions of moms and their kids. They give a safe venue from which to say, “My child is brighter than yours.” “My child is cuter than yours.” “My home is nicer than yours.” “My life is better than yours.” And, as a natural extension, also provide moms with the needed reassurance.

Maybe, as I supposed when first beginning this blog, it is just a great way to keep in touch, provide updates, and communicate with a host of friends and family in various locations with great ease.

But, I have another theory based on the nature of motherhood itself. Particularly, stay-at-home mothering.

Parenthood, more than anything else I have experienced in life, seems to place me on a great precipice. There is the potential for enormous failure, for wrecking not only my own life but those of the people I love the most. The fear that I may fail to help my children learn to navigate this world in a responsible, compassionate, and thoughtful way. The overwhelming, looming possibility of their inadequacy, and subsequently my own.

And, yet, on the other side is the tremendous and tantalizing thought that I may succeed. That I may manage to raise brilliant, capable, self-reliant, devoted, loving people. That they will achieve independence, personal success, and righteousness.

Just to add to the enormity of the task that lies before me are the mantras of my religious culture that banter about in my head. “Families are forever.” “No success can compensate for failure in the home.” I believe these things. I really, truly, believe them. But boy, what a weight to carry around daily as I approach this monumental task of being a mother.

And, here is where my theory takes off. It is the day-to-day facing of something so huge, so critically important that is the real challenge. Because despite being incredibly valuable, on a day-to-day basis, it feels mighty mundane.

Nothing is more isolating, more challenging, more lonely, more exhausting than being a full-time mom.

Plus, it is often difficult to figure out how you are doing along the way. Formal employment offers performance assessments – key indicators of how you stack up, of how much you are accomplishing. Accomplishing. That is a key word, because, to be totally honest, motherhood is quite devoid of accomplishment. Few are the moments when you can stand back, assess your progress and say, “Look what I got done, now I’m going to take a break.” Because there are no breaks. There is no real rest. It is a constant process, an eternal obligation. Sure, you can go out for the evening, send the kids off to school for the day, even, but it doesn’t end the need to keep on mothering.

How do you rank your performance on tasks that are never complete? When you do the same thing every day, when you wash the same clothes and dishes, every day, when you pick up the same messes and vacuum the same crumbs, when you settle the same sibling quarrels, and teach the same lessons, every single day, it gets hard to know how you are doing. Whether it is amounting to much of anything.

Caring for kids is a singular work. It contains little adult conversation, or adult thought.

So, it is all the more essential to reach out, somehow, and feel like you are not truly alone in the struggle. To know that others are dealing with the same types of issues, day after day after day, too.

That is where I think the mom blog comes in. It is a hope, an attempt to share the frustrations, the joys, the challenges, the successes, the failures, the disappointments of motherhood. It is a need to account for what it is you actually do and connect to others.

Which brings me back to why I do this thing: why do I write a “mom blog”?

It is partly to keep in touch (and maybe even brag a bit) to family far away, to share some little moments that grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles miss when they only see us every six months.

It is also to write. To have a venue for the thoughts that run around in my brain and pester me until I put them down on e-paper.

It is also a way to document, for future reference the happenings of my life, and of my children’s lives. A journal, but far less personal, and hopefully, better written.

But, I think, most of all, it is to tell the truth about my life. To honestly talk about what I do and how I see it.

That is my one commitment when I write. I won’t sugar coat it. I won’t pretend that I am a mother that I am not, or that my family and children are something they are not. I won’t say I always love it or that I am always loving. I won’t carry on some charade about how our family has it all. We don’t. I don’t. Instead, I will just tell the truth.

And so this blog continues to range across the topics and happenings of my life. It is about what we do, and maybe about some accomplishments along the way. And, it is about me. What I think, what I struggle with, and mostly, what it is like for me to work at being a mom.

Now, 100 posts later, I am not certain where I want to go. Do I want to keep with the “mom blog” thing? Do I open my blog up and make it more public? What topics matter the most for me to write about – and in what format? Are my poems or essays as worthy of posting as the stories about the kids? Should I roll in my recipe blog (which I am terrible at updating) and make it all one? Should I focus more on formal writing, rather than anecdotes, or discuss more current events? Finally, if this is mainly about me, does it matter if anyone reads it, and if it does, should I think about what they may want to see here?

I have not yet decided what the future holds. But, if you have any ideas on where I should go, how to make this “mom blog” move up to the next level, feel free to share.