AnchorMommy

Visible M(others): Keeping Connections

April 1, 2010 by Shannon

The Blog as a Digital Family Scrapbook

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 5, 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 you tell people you’re a blogger, you get a pretty standard slew of responses. First, there are those who act as if it’s the first time they’ve ever heard the word:

You have a blog? What’s a blog? You put pictures on there? What do you write about?

Then there are people who cut right to the chase:

A blog, huh? You makin’ any money on that?

And then there are those who are on exactly the same page:

Oh, you are a blogger? What kind of blog? My blog’s about…

The first response is quickly becoming more rare as more and more people join the blogging bandwagon. In fact, the sheer number and variety of blogs is mind boggling. But for me, blogging is a record of sorts. A memento of my life, chronicled by words and pictures.

That said, this is not purely a personal blog. My intention with AnchorMommy is to provide an outlet for fellow moms – a place to laugh and share good ideas. But it would be impossible for me not to share personal aspects of my life here. Heck, I’ve written about my son’s affinity for saying the word penis. I’ve written about it twice, in fact. And I know someday I’ll look back on what’s written here and thank my lucky stars that I sat down to write about some of the quirky daily stuff. That’s the stuff you can easily forget. And I’ll be honest – my son’s baby book is quite empty. What I record here on AnchorMommy helps me deal with that guilt.

AnchorMommy also serves as a digital scrapbook of one of the biggest transitions of my life – leaving my dream job for life as a full-time mom. I was terrified to make the leap, but I survived. In fact, I’d say I’m thriving. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and I think that shows in the words I write.

I don’t know that I will ever consider this a truly personal blog – I have one of those, and it’s getting very little time and attention these days – but AnchorMommy is priceless in terms of the opportunity it gives me to keep a record of my child’s (soon to be childrens’!) early years.