counter on blogger

Pickle Me This

May 15, 2009

On mommy blogs, maternal ambivalence, and my worst tendencies

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing and motherhood lately, as I put one on the back burner and prepare for the other. I reread Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work yesterday, which is such a complicated, dark and beautiful book. And two ideas glared at me from her introduction– first, the inevitable backlash to any mother who dares to put her experiences down on paper (or blog). Cusk found herself taken aback, but reasoned the response with that “in writing about motherhood, I inevitably attracted a readership too diverse to be satisfied from a single source. The world has many more mothers than an author generally has readers.” So many people read her book because they were interested in motherhood, because of “the desire to see it reflected, to have it explained, all that love and terror and strangeness, even if it is immediately repressed by the far stronger desire for authority and consensus, for ‘normality’ to be restored: to me, the childcare manual is the emblem of the new mother’s psychic loneliness.” But more on this in a minute.

Second, Cusk writes “with the gloomy suspicion that a book about motherhood is of no real interest to anyone except other mothers.” Which I’ve been conscious of also here, as babies have become such a preoccupation of mine lately. As my personal experiences, the books I’ve read, the way I’ve been reading, and everything I’ve been doing have been so framed within the context of our baby’s imminent arrival. Though Pickle Me This has never been a particularly serious literary blog, it’s certainly become even less so lately. I’m not saying my hard-hitting criticisms of picture books aren’t worth noting, but there are some readers, I’m sure, who are less than enthralled. And I really don’t want to alienate any of my five readers.

Here’s the thing: I have read mommy blogs. (Note, I didn’t say “I read (present tense) mommy blogs”. But now I’m getting all Brian Mulroney pedantic.) The term mommy blog is a slur, as is “chick lit”, neither “genre” (let’s say) helping itself by mainly comprising compost. Stephany Aulenback recently remarked on the ubiquity of parents chronicling their children’s lives online: “I think when our children are grown up, they’re going to have different notions of “public” than we do now.”

My derision of women writing about their domestic lives (“compost”) sits uncomfortably with me, because it’s so easy to deride women’s domestic lives– everybody does it. By existing within the domestic sphere, these stories really serve to undermine themselves, which certainly bothers me when it comes to fiction. When with aesthetics as an excuse, fiction about women’s lives is so often deemed less than literary, as craft is less than art, etc.

The problem I have with mommy blogs, however, is that I watch them in the same way I’d watch a train wreck– even the incredibly well-written ones. I don’t necessarily admire these women’s “honesty” and how they “put themselves out there”, but sometimes I really do have to tear my eyes away. Their deliberate provocations are often horrifying, my knee-jerk response is catty, and I’m not the only one. As Cusk says, “The world has many more mothers…”, each one with her own opinions, and then fights break out in the comments section, commenters accusing other bloggers’ “followers” of being sheep, and then baa-ing themselves. Controversial topics include diapers, breastfeeding, reproductive rights, between working moms who work at home or out, and these are controversial topics, but it’s all handled a bit grade five. No one ever shows up to have their minds changed or expanded. My problem with these blogs is less with the blogs themselves, but how they feed on my worst tendencies.

(Though I also hate the smugness. The current trend is to embrace your inner bad-mom, and let her all hang out, but at the root of this is the sense that badness is in fact best. That anyone embracing domesticity has something up her ass, that liberation lies in the anti-domestic after all, but I’m really not so sure. I think a lot of these people might be misled. For all they’re anti-mom, they not beyond-mom, and they certainly define themselves in relation to their [albeit messy] homes. And this is a bit dangerous, can all go very wrong– I read one blog by a defiantly proud bad mom, and then her baby died.)

Which is not to say that maternal ambivalence, the experience of which these women are trying to project, is not real, or a subject deeply worth pursuing. It’s just not very often expressed in a particularly thoughtful way within these forums. Whereas I’ve found the idea explored well elsewhere, in the experiences of women artists in particular. Perhaps because these women have a medium with which to convey their experiences, because they are well-accustomed to expressing themselves. Because it’s a complicated issue requiring a high level of articulateness. We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Divided Heart, Who Does She Think She Is, Cusk’s A Life’s Work, Anne Enright’s Making Babies, and I was recently introduced to Marita Dachsel’s Motherhood and Writing Interviews (by writer Laisha Rosnau, who is the subject of one).

So somehow I find myself saying that inarticulate people have no business writing about their lives. Hmmm. (Or perhaps that they should, but I just shouldn’t read them because I’m not very nice). For your own interest, please do check in in about two weeks times to see how articulate I’ve become with a newborn, and then again six months later when my house is a mess and I’m smashing my head against the wall and the stove is on fire. When I’m just as bad a mom as any of them, reality sunk in. Don’t think I’m not aware of this, but it’s still scary to consider.

But it’s not simply black and white, good mom/bad mom and I appreciate the writing best that reflects this. How Rachel Power (author of The Divided Heart) wrote recently: “maternal ambivalence is not a state of being torn between love and hate for our children (meaning not them so much as what they’ve done to our lives) — but is a state entirely borne out of love. It is precisely this love for my children, being so excruciating, that I can feel has ruined me. This acute tenderness and sense of responsibility is something us mothers are never free of, and almost impossible to imagine until you’re in it.”

5 thoughts on “On mommy blogs, maternal ambivalence, and my worst tendencies”

  1. meli-mello says:

    Okay, I started leaving you a comment but then it got too long and I turned it into a blog post that got rambly and off topic: http://www.meli-mello.com/?p=799

  2. starrlife says:

    Interesting perspective! I think you might be on to something akin to the phenomena of celebrities having kids. All of a sudden it’s like something new?! I am a mommy, I have a blog, hoping for balance in my life I try to express myself in proportion to all of the things going on in my life. That being said- good luck trying to keep proportion when the baby is born!

  3. Sarah says:

    I’m a little torn here. Okay, a lot. And not so sure I should post a comment, but I will (can’t keep my mouth shut very well). Every mother’s experiences are different, though we find something comforting in the sameness. The small things that really aren’t worth mentioning unless you are talking to another mother. And the love? It is overwhelming. But excruciating? Crushing the person you once were in a way that is cruel and unforgivable? I would never categorize it as such. There’s this thing that happens when you become a mother. It has no words. It is only known once you are there. I will indeed check back, because I’d like to see a post-birth post. However, from experience it is the addition of even more children that really throws you for a loop.

    For the record I absolutely hate the term Mommy Blogs, and click away from many with one quick look at the header. But there is a place for this writing that we do as mothers, online, alone at night when our children sleep. There is a place for it.

  4. patricia says:

    Very thoughtful post. Obviously, I’m quite biased, because I don’t have kids. So of course I cannot begin to understand the experiences of a mom, especially a new mom. But that doesn’t stop me from having an opinion about ‘mommy blogs’ (yes, horrid label, right up there with ‘yummy mummy’). I have read a few, and am stunned at the comments that various mothers post. And yes, I don’t quite get this ‘bad mommy’ trend (Rebecca Eckler, anyone? My stomach hurls).

    What I don’t quite get about the mommy blogs that I have encountered is that it seems to me that most of these blogs are so self-centered, not really about their kids. Am I wrong here? Perhaps I have read the wrong mommy blogs. But anyway, yes, they annoy me.

    What these mommy blogs bring to my mind is this new culture of the ‘smug parent’ that I find so offensive. It’s as if this generation of parents are the first to truly understand what having children is really all about – everything beforehand was just a dress rehearsal, not to be taken seriously.

    But I am looking forward to what you have to say, Kerry, about your experiences as a mother. I know your comments will be thoughtful, insightful and clever.

    Oh, and speaking of ‘bad mommies’ have you seen Heather Armstrong’s latest photo shoot?
    http://www.dooce.com/2009/05/26/36-weeks

    I am so very, very tired of that self-absorbed woman.

  5. Medela backpack says:

    This is truly an interesting entry,i just loved reading it, keep interesting posts like this coming!

Leave a Reply to patricia Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

New Novel, OUT NOW!

ATTENTION BOOK CLUBS:

Download the super cool ASKING FOR A FRIEND Book Club Kit right here!


Sign up for Pickle Me This: The Digest

Sign up to my Substack! Best of the blog delivered to your inbox each month. The Digest also includes news and updates about my creative projects and opportunities for you to work with me.


My Books

The Doors
Twitter Pinterest Pinterest Good Reads RSS Post