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You could buy a Moleskine.

Ah, the Gray Lady does seem to be pissing off a lot of the bloggerati these days, eh? Kinda refreshing, if you ask me. The latest uproar is about a Styles article on "mommy blogging," this statement in particular:

The baby blog in many cases is an online shrine to parental self-absorption.

Alarums and excursions. More handwringing about the Times' agenda regarding bloggers, which I'm beginning to think roughly translates to "Why should we praise people who say we suck?" Though the wise, good, just blogosphere never really said that, really, they just said that they could do everything faster and better than the moribund, obsolete, hidebound MSM. And they also said a bunch of stuff about transparency and openness. Which I'd quote you, but it was discussed on a private mailing list associated with an invitation-only conference.

But I digress. Oh, yes, "mommy blogging." Julie Leung explains why it's legit:

This "mass therapy" and exploration of voice and identity are valid reasons for anyone to blog, whether a teenage guy or an at-home-mom or a CEO. Parents have some of the same reasons to want to blog as anyone else.

...writing forces you to meditate on who the heck you are: a particular need for parents in our culture today, especially those who have decided to get off the career ladder for a while. In our culture, we are identified by our job, our career, our skills, our education. When we lived in Silicon Valley, I remember the first question people would ask when being introduced was "Where do you work?".

Something about this didn't sit quite right with me, because I think that writing is indeed a fine tool for self-exploration. It nagged at me until I read Eric Meyer's take on the issue:

Blogging about little Johnny’s poopy diapers, or Susie’s apparently sourceless temper tantrums, is in no sense of the word necessary. It isn’t even needed, either by you or by the rest of us. If you absolutely must write down your thoughts and feelings about how hard it is to be a parent, do so in a private journal. Fifteen years from now, you can decide whether or not to give it to your child, and if you do, they can decide what to do with it. But don’t throw it out into the world as if it were a list of your favorite movies. That’s unnecessarily cruel.

Ah-ha! That's it! Many people write for self-exploration, but feel no need to inflict it on others in public! That's what I was thinking! People, didn't home movies teach us anything? All this stuff is going to be good for is embarrassing your child later on in front of their boy/girlfriends. I think that one of Julie Leung's commenters said what's really going on here best:

I blog because I type faster than I can write by hand. And I like how my site looks so far. And because I feel hip doing this thing online rather than having a journal. :)

Posted by John on February 8, 2005 9:36 PM |

Comments

Interesting. I can see the point of keeping stuff private out of respect if it is potentially harmful to another person. But if something's not harmful, who cares whether it's public or private? No one's forcing us to read it. Indeed, no one probably will read it except the precious few who find it interesting. Those people are likely to be a) related, or b) going through the exact same thing. Anytime, you make something public, you create an opportunity for a connection, for an extension of your community. Will anything come of it? Maybe, maybe not. But there's the possibility, which is more than is there writing in a private journal.

This, from a blogger who hasn't posted in two weeks! :-)

Posted by: Luke | February 13, 2005 10:49 PM