The Tale of the Mommyblogger Who Is No Longer a Mommy

I’ve started and stopped this post about a dozen times over the past 8 months. Not from writer’s block…no, that hasn’t been the issue. Not because of my health or needing time to really concentrate.

I’m a mommyblogger that is no longer a mommy. The kids, they call me Mom now. Usually with an eyeroll, a groan, or a shoulder shrug and sigh.

When they called me mommy I was enveloped by little arms and sticky hands for a hug that would last and last. They would last so long I carried them and rarely put them down.

I’m a mommyblogger who is no longer a mommy and it hurts.

Now when I write about the kids, I ask their permission first and they get final review with a clear cut ‘yes’ or ‘no’ when it comes to hitting the publish button. Having lived their entire lives in front of my audience, they remain used to me sharing so they rarely say no. But that doesn’t stop the guilt. If they do say yes I still pepper them with questions to make sure they are cool with what I’m posting. This is their life. They deserve a say. They deserve to have their voice be heard in my piece and they deserve total control over what I do or do not disclose to the public.

We’ve entered the next phase of Mommyblogging where our kids now have blogs or vlogs of their own. They have joined online communities in Minecraft and Roblox and Animal Jam. Some of their in world homes rival the castle I once inhabited in Second Life. We had fun in SL, throwing dance parties and changing our avatars’ skins and hair and clothing. So you can imagine how it feels to watch your daughter decorate her den in Animal Jam, change her avatar to a wolf and proceed to shop for new boots and sunglasses. She then invited her other Animal Jam buddies over for a dance party.

How quickly things change, yet oddly stay the same.

I’m trying to work out where I fit in the Mommyblogging 2.0 world. I left to tackle politics yet kept most of my writing parent centric. I got sick and blogged about my health. And somewhere between all of that my kids went from blog fodder to bloggers themselves.

I still want to write about life. Our family’s life. I’m picking topics and ditching topics because I wonder what my kids will think. What if I write something, feel I really need to publish, and they ask me not to?

I know I’m not alone. Many in my community of Mombloggers have changed their focus in the past few years. Some starting businesses that began on their blogs, others continuing their writing yet taking more review gigs for income.

Me? I just want to write. I want to write like I always have written. If my daughter is consuming my thoughts on any given day I want to type. If my son has me thinking well into the night I want to type.

When I first began blogging I didn’t have two people over my shoulder, I had two in my lap nursing and playing while I typed.

If I can’t be my authentic self to you, I can’t do this anymore. I believe I can still be that authentic blogger you once knew, but she’s finding her way back slowly. With some new rules. With some new boundaries.

Thanks for sticking around for so many years to hear about my life, my family, my passions.

I hope you will continue to come on over and read as I start this new journey. Maybe it is more like an old journey that’s story isn’t quite done yet.

-Erin

 

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  1. john lewis commercial always a woman (april 2010)

    The Tale of the Mommyblogger Who Is No Longer a Mommy

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