AnchorMommy

Visible M(others): Sharing the Struggles

March 11, 2010 by Shannon

The Blog as Support Network

I’ve been selected to participate in a gallery exhibition over the course of the next six weeks called “Visible M(others): Images of Parenting in Visual Culture.” The show runs March 4 - April 11, 2010 at the Boise State University Student Union Gallery and is free to the public (go see it!). I’m collaborating with Amy Pence-Brown over at Doin’ It All, Idaho Style. We’ll both be writing new posts on Thursday of each week for the six weeks of the exhibition, exploring ideas of how our “mommyblogs” are a sort of “digital front porch swing,” a place to share information and be heard, a forum for asking questions, showing off our kids and our skills. Mommyblogs act not only as an informational outlet, but a creative force in our contemporary maternal visual culture, as the blogs are loaded with not only verbal creativity, but also photography, crafts, and other digital imagery documenting our lives as mothers. Provoking complex questions, the exhibition presents new perspectives on traditional, contemporary, alternative or imagined parenting and how they operate in a visible/invisible landscape of maternal visual culture.

When it became clear that I was going to leave my dream job as a television news anchor and producer, I fell apart. I’m not even joking. I opened a bottle of wine at 4 in the afternoon, and I drank the whole thing. I cried. I laughed like a maniac. I cried some more. A LOT more. My boss was nice enough to give me a couple of days off to collect myself. (And boy, did I need those days.)

But I also turned to something that had become an invaluable outlet for self expression — my personal blog. Right after I popped that bottle of wine, I posted this:

The comments I got on that post still bring tears to my eyes. Several very wise and intelligent women gave me compassionate advice and offered a virtual shoulder to cry on. And cry, I did. My personal blog was the place where I came to terms with the thought of leaving a career I had built for a decade — the one job I dreamed of since I was a teenager. I believed my career had come to define me, and I was terrified to let it go. But I faced my fears and began a new chapter in my life — which, of course, included this blog — largely thanks to the support I got from those women.

I started AnchorMommy because I felt I had something to contribute to the mommy blogging community. I wanted a place to air the struggles and joys of motherhood in a fun and light-hearted way. The world of mom blogs is a pretty huge and diverse place, but somehow its boundaries draw in just a bit with each comment, each blog subscriber. Knowing that other women share the exasperation I feel over a kid who talks at mealtime more than he eats somehow makes my job seem a little easier. While blogs are as varied and unique as the people who write them, I believe that they are a invaluable way to connect mothers who might otherwise keep their successes and struggles to themselves, or a least limit the sharing of those common experiences to 10 minute phone calls between friends. I think this sharing gives women something we all long for on some level — a connection to the world outside the nuclear family.

And I’ve “met” some pretty amazing women along the way. I have never had the privilege of sitting down to coffee with them, but I’ve laughed at their hilarious parenting mishaps and read about their struggles with tears in my eyes. I’ve even exchanged a Christmas card with one of them — Canadian blogger BoredMommy. That card was a tangible reminder that the words written by people with common experiences have a way of connecting lives beyond the keyboard.

That’s not to say that every blog post is a big kum-bay-ah experience. There are some nasty, bitter people out there. Bloggers refer to them as “trolls.” Luckily, I haven’t experienced any troll nastiness on my blog. But plenty of mommy bloggers have, and I’m sure my day is coming. I think in this case, the best thing to do is to use our blogs as an outlet to publicly shame them for their heartless cruelty, as the aforementioned BoredMommy so wittily did in a post entitled Why I’m PROUD to call myself a Mommy! (You go, Maria.) But an interesting thing happened when she blogged about the mean-spirited comment — which I will not mention here because I do not want to give that statement more “life,” so to speak. Her post practically exploded with comments of support, mostly from mothers. Then other bloggers, including myself, started blogging about what happened to BoredMommy. My response, No One Wins the Mommy Wars, prompted a whole new slew of thoughtful and reasoned responses from faithful AnchorMommy readers, including this one from Mom2Miles, the blogger behind Diary of a New Mom:

I totally agree that the Internet has made this behavior more visible and easier, in a way. What person would dare make such a rude, ignorant comment to someone’s face? But an anonymous comment on a blog takes no courage or thought at all.

Many mommy bloggers have never met each other. Some have met at a conference here and there. But if there is one thing that will mobilize an entire group of female writers, it is a thoughtless and rude comment that trivializes them and the lives they lead. These women will speak out — LOUDLY. And I am proud to count myself among this group of strong, educated, empowered and amazing women.

But the support network behind a blog goes far beyond the trolls. It is most apparent when women share their innermost selves, their parenting struggles, their vulnerabilities as people. It takes courage to put yourself out to the world — not to mention a hefty dose of honesty — and in my experience, 99.9% of the time sympathetic and/or wise blog comments surface in return. For me, it is reassuring to know that there are other women out there whom I’ve never met that understand my perspective. Mothers who understand how a missed nap or a simple ear infection can turn a perfectly manageable day into a complete parenting nightmare. Mothers who understand the constant day-to-day juggling act of working outside the home. Mothers who understand the sense of loss a woman feels when she leaves a career she loves to take care of a family she adores.

I’ve learned a lot since that dark day just over a year ago when I stared down the possibility of a life without a career and completely fell to pieces. But the experience helped me realize several things:

1. I’m stronger than I realize.
2. I have a lot of talent, career or not.
3. I am lucky to have a network of smart, intelligent women who have my back.

And I have blogging — specifically the world of mommy blogging — to thank for helping me come to each one of those valuable realizations.