Suicide Watch: The Offendedness Offensive Continues

I went looking for your blog after being referred to your article on "too cool for preschool" by a relative. I found your article annoying not because of your premise, but because I fear it will embarrass and possible inhibit a whole group of people that depend upon blogging as a creative outlet in a very distressing and discouraging time.

The majority of us younger parents have never felt less "hip" in our lives, but we get over it. The stretch marks claimed our bodies, and the raising of kids has claimed our minds. $16 sex pistols onesies yeah right! We have MUCH bigger frustrations to deal with than what ... education, healthcare, childcare, paying rent. To dismiss parent bloggers as self-obsessed solipsists is incredible mean spirited and misses the point.

I have a blog (started recently) and in it I talk about my primary occupation- motherhood. I also hold down two other jobs, in order to pay rent and feed my kid. I have subordinated my life to my child to the extent that I sometimes go without the basics in order to get through a day- like struggling parents everywhere. If through blogging empathy is encouraged, people feel that they are able to connect to the bigger picture, and at the same time can record some milestones that would otherwise be forgotten (yes- we do FORGET all those unforgetable little details!) than isn't it worth it?

I am 33, the youngest of 7 kids, and my personal details blurred into those of my siblings years ago. I do not mourn my own lost "memories", but in a time when moms are pressured to scrapbook every little event that takes place in their child's lives, finding the time for an occasional journal entry featuring their child (NOT invading or exploiting-that is NOT okay- of course this is a judgement call) is, in my opinion, a generous and worthy use of your time as a mom. It is a way to communicate with your community, let your feelings out, process, question assumptions, learn, be creative. How can you begrudge them that? Just what we moms need is another dressing down guilt-trip. Find them tacky? Don't read em. Find something inappropriate? Let the blogger know how you feel! And as for hipness... well, are gen-x'ers really the "me generation"? Weren't those the folks that came right before us, that fed us as elementary schoolers the likes of Reagan and Dynasty and Wham!? Aren't we the ones that are characterized as having no discerning characteristics in the first place? Well I guess I'll have to re-read my Douglas Copeland... as soon as I get the chance. Maybe I can fit it in between job number one, snack-mom duties and embarrassing my child in front of the world.
-Katy