A few months ago, I received an invitation from a PR person to take my family on a trip to a popular Midwestern family destination. I wasn’t sure how the PR firm had found me; they mentioned liking my blog, but I assumed that they had also seen that I have written about midwestern travel and lifestyle for magazines like Midwest Living, Michigan BLUE and AAA Living and the e-mail was worded similarly to other press trips I’ve been invited on.
When we got to the destination, I picked up my meal vouchers and press pass, and that’s where I saw it: below my name, on the line that would usually read “Freelance Travel Writer” or list the name of the publication I was writing for, it said “MOMMY BLOGGER.”
I cringed, then felt indignant. Mommy blogger? That’s what I am? Not a published writer, not a blogger who happens to cover motherhood in addition to other topics. Just…mommy blogger. For one thing, I don’t even LIKE the word “mommy”…it’s always felt kind of smarmy and whiny to me, and it’s more of an affectionate title used by young children than a descriptive term. Used in conjunction with “blogger”–and written on the line that would usually indicate my credentials–it felt almost like an insult.
I know that Mommy Blogger seems to be the title of choice for many moms who blog. At BlogHer, after all, there was an entire track of MommyBlogging panels; and a lot of women use the title proudly or at least readily. And maybe some use it ironically, sort of like re-claiming the word “bitch” or “queer”…a way to take a title that somebody might try to use to diminish us as a whole, and instead find power in it.
I can understand that, I guess, but I still don’t like it, because no matter how proudly we may use the title, the fact is that MommyBlogger still sounds kind of silly and trivial. As much as I’d like to think they are, I don’t imagine that other people using and hearing the word are doing it as some kind of pro-mom political statement.
The sound of the title aside, I feel like my writing and blogging stands on its own without having to be linked with my maternal status–yes, I am a mother even when I write, but I come to the page as a complex individual, not just a “mommy”. Also, I spend my whole life being a mom; writing is something I do for myself, even when I am writing about my kids; and even though I don’t completely remove my “mom hat” when I write–I just kinda slide it over and make room for the “writer” hat–I write as a writer, not a mommy.
And what about those of us who blog, and are mothers, but don’t write solely about our kids, primarily about our kids, or at all about our kids? Would you call Guy Kawasaki, who also has four children, a “DaddyBlogger” if he mentioned his kids from time to time? Does the term “daddyblogger” regularly get used to describe men who, just like we mothers, write about their kids in addition to their lives and their jobs and their interests?
I’m not generally one to get my knickers in a knot over terminology. Though I can see why it might bother some, I really don’t care if somebody calls me “hon” or “girl”. But “mommyblogger” gets me fired up, maybe partly because it just seems to be used so unquestioningly. I wonder why we accept this term so readily and why there doesn’t seem to be more debate over it (maybe there already was and I missed it?)
I have yet to refer to myself as a “mommyblogger”, but more and more, other people are referring to me as one. I know it’s done with positive intent, but the fact is, I just don’t like it. I’m a mother who blogs. I’m a writer with children. I write about my husband sometimes, but you don’t call me a “Wifeblogger”, do you? The title of “mommy” is only appropriate in the context of my relationship with my kids. In other words, my sons can call me Mommy. The rest of the world, on the other hand? I’d rather they didn’t.
