Ima 2 Eight

Last week, Marjorie Ingall wrote an article in the online Jewish magazine Tablet that made me quite upset. I wanted to scream from the rooftops via this blog. While I expressed my opinion quite unequivocally there in the comments section, I deferred writing about it myself.

First of all, I have never seen anything good come from writing out of anger and actually hitting “send”  or “publish”.  Second, I was angry enough that I definitely did not want to respond to the article by sending it lots of extra traffic. Note that I haven’t yet put in the link. You can look at it since I have no doubt made you curious, but I am going to add the link at the end of this piece, because I would rather first get my say.

The title of the article is “Blogorrhea: Why I Don’t Read Mommyblogs”. Had she written about why she personally doesn’t choose to read mommyblogs, I do not think I would have gotten upset.  However, she wrote that someone else included her in the category somewhere as a mommyblogger and this “horrified” her. The article is primarily explaining her horror, dumping on mommyblogs all along the way.

I found this to be off-putting and I felt angry because of the tone of intellectual superiority, which always pushes my buttons. “I am so much better than you”, regardless of the reasoning – or even the veracity of the statement – will always upset me. The fact that a professional would choose to write an article about why she is superior to mommybloggers as a “real writer” does not seem to be a great topic with which to demonstrate her own point.

Having said that, so what?  Why write a post about it? Why not choose to think she is an annoying and bad writer and no longer read her stuff, right?

The reason is I think that she chose to make her point by choosing the highest common denominator of her self-defined category and comparing it to the lowest common denominator of mommybloggers in order to demonstrate said superiority. I think she mentioned a tiny number of exceptions to her own rules about mommybloggers, presenting them as the only few gems in a vast sea of trash, and because I think she is dead wrong.

So, while far, far, far fewer people will see this than her article in Tablet magazine, this is why I do read mommyblogs:

There is without a doubt a great number of mommyblogs that are personal diaries stored on-line. While I am sure that they are posted for good reasons, almost none of them ever get my attention. There are a lot of other mommyblogs, however, that confront issues very differently than parenting magazines and personalize them for me in a way that helps me reflect, learn and improve.

There are incredibly talented writers who chose different priorities than a writing career – in many cases their mommyhood – that channel that talent into sharing about issues that matter very deeply to me and inspire me to be a better mother and a better writer.

Many women cope through sharing, and I am one of them. I have found community in the world of blogging in a way that I never could in the real world. There are women whose lives or interests intersect with mine in different ways, with whom I have connected in a way that has changed me forever. While “article writers” may choose to feel that they are “real writers”, they are also distancing themselves from their audience, and are talking at the reader.  Many mommybloggers are engaged in a powerful cyberdiscussion that flows through many different blogs and cumulatively has an impact on the participants. In my case, that impact has been profound.

I think that there is a very long list of extraordinary, talented, articulate women out there who are passionate about raising children the best way they can. Some are passionate about other things I also love, such as Judaism, Israel, music or the increase of one’s knowledge. They are teaching me and inspiring me and helping me do a better job, exposing me to ideas, challenging my assumptions, inspiring me with photos, poetry, reflections and even sometimes sentimental stories or gripes. They are talking and listening, and the conversations are a part of my growth.

I feel sorry for anyone who isn’t proud to have the title of mommyblogger… she must not know most of you out there that have become my latest heroes. You know who you are.

*As mentioned above, here is a link to the article written by Marjorie Ingall.

Addendum: I wanted to add this link from TrueSlant, with a different take on the issue.