What Mommy Blogs and Forbes Have in Common

Last week, I came across a blog post that had gone viral.  The content was about how lame/loosery mommy blogs are.  Bashing mommy blogs is a popular activity on the net.  In fact, if you Google, “I hate mommy blogs,” you get an instant 2,010,000 results. 

This bothers me.

What a shame that women following the rules – becoming mothers, perfectly folding fitted sheets and cutting their kids pb&j’s into the shapes of happy dinosaurs – are also the butt of a national joke.  To me, this is just one more example of how being a woman is complex.  Misogynist attitudes can rear up in ghoulish smiles no matter what we wear, do for a living or write about. 

And women are just as likely to distance themselves from what society sees as "female" talents.  In fact, we might be even more eager to roll our collective eyes at the writer who devotes a post per week on tips to get your toddler to sleep, because it makes us feel smarter or more important than her. 

Come on.

Women are awesome.  Just check out the example of one mommy blogger who turned her talent into a successful moneymaking enterprise.  And when she ended up with an inbox full of hate mail, she launched a separate site fully devoted to featuring cherry-picked examples of her haters, surrounded by oodles of income generating advertisements.  Heather Armstrong at Dooce.com proved that a mommy blog could actually land a woman on the list of Forbes’s list of most influential women in the media.

So hey - let’s celebrate whatever women are good at, whether it’s jaw-dropping Halloween decorations or becoming one of the 4.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs.  Why should skills and interests that fall into the traditionally domestic realm be regarded with such disdain?  It can take months to paint and decorate a bedroom, hours to create a mouth watering pan of salted caramel brownies and years to figure out how to perfectly fold those fitted sheets.  Personally, I’m still working on that one.  It's really freaking hard.  But after a month of caring for six kids - feeding them, keeping them clean, reading countless books and singing endless songs to them, washing 3,000 dishes, slapping together at least 100 sandwiches and, cleaning my house... 

Every.  Single.  Day.

I felt proud of myself.

At the end of the day, my body ached as if I'd run a full marathon.  But my soul glowed as if I'd won that marathon!  I made children smile and laugh.  I filled their sweet tummies and connected with my husband over how gorgeous it was when Tomas urged the elderly bus lady at Old Country Buffet to sit with us and enjoy a bowl of soft serve.  Across two languages and countless countries, a six-year-old Latvian boy and a hard-working, Mexican woman shared a smile.  She didn't sit with us but she did reach into her pocket and slip me a coupon for a free meal next time we came in.  This was a moment to breathe in, a sentimental exchange that you might find illuminated with care by a domestic goddess, on a mommy blog.

Ode to A Domestic Goddess

Her home, clean walls with snow-white painted baseboards 

Smells like a host of buttery apple pies baking 

Right now

This makes me want to sink into the pretty couch pillows and beg

Take care of me

The lack of lint on her rugs, the way a hand-knit afghan is gently

(But artfully)

Tossed across the back of a flowered chair

All whisper the words

Nurture

Lullaby

Embrace

Hers is the home we love to visit

The meal we swoon over and savor as it slides against the soft pallet of our tongues

Let's take our collective hands from their throats

And celebrate the Nigellas