Mommy Blog Lines: Tal(k)ing Care

Jaque and I are waiting in the San Francisco Airport to catch our flight back to Winnipeg. We’re feeling inspired by the co-presenters and feminists we met in the audience of our session “Birthing Rhetoric, Mommy Blogs and What Mommies Want” with Lori Beth De Hertogh (Washington State U) and Dawn Opel (Arizona State U). Our discussion about the surveillance and censorship experienced when posting on line (whether on Face Book or on Blogs) drew discussion and analysis about the differences between self-censorship (which we all practice on a daily basis of what we tell to whom and under what conditions) and being censored by employers, government, business, and corporations (censorship by Face Book was the focus of discussion around the Birthing Without Fear online Community). We questioned the role of responsibility that authors have/should have in being aware of what they are posting. We reflected upon the permanence of posts once uploaded to the internet and the long-term repercus...

In our culture, the lines between private and public life are eroded by social media–we have been learning variants of this lesson for so long that it has become forgettable by its familiarity. How can we expect modesty and self control from bloggers in a culture that increasingly celebrates self exposure? Tell and show all isn’t new. There has long been a strand of celebrity culture devoted to self-drama and -revelation, but in the days when modernists made such judgments, most forms of self exposure were linked to low culture. Now we call it popular culture. People say anything. People live their lives on camera. People want to share. Blogging is part of this wave that lets the inside out, that does away with boundaries. Yet there is a tension. Many of us still want to preserve some sense of inviolate self–of there being more to us than meets the eye, of having an inner life or core. Our blog has focused on privacy ethics–how we owe it to others to protect them for exposure an...

This is a tough topic. Recently in Winnipeg a mother killed her two young children and then herself. She was apparently suffering from postpartum depression. The community support for the “family” was positive–stacks of teddy bears left outside the [likely empty] home where the children died, tears and efforts to understand. About a year earlier, an aboriginal mom participated with a partner in the murder of her young daughter. She is in jail, with a guard outside her cell–no one (no one I have heard) speaks up with compassion. In one case the mother punished herself with death, and the community responds by feeling sorry and kind–nothing left to do but be generous (and perhaps glad it’s not “me”). In the other case, there’s a pound of flesh to extract. This mother did not kill herself or die, but was arrested and criminalized, a pariah in her own community and in the eyes of the general citizenry. I guess we like to think that nobody can be so bad unless they are a hybrid, huma...

“Privacy” and “posting”–the words seem antithetical! Thinking about the ethics governing privacy rights forces us to raise the question: Can we blog about being moms about our families without telling family secrets? Isn’t it possible we say things now that might offend beloved family members later? “Mom, I never told you you could tell anyone about helping me get that morning after pill!” “Mom, my trouble with those girls was my story, not yours to share. If you refer to “Lisa,” everyone who finds this blog will know I got a mean note and that I couldn’t handle being bullied.” “Mom how dare you say we had to buy extra large underwear?” There are so many bans against telling. On the other hand, are we to be silent–back to the old days of being seen and not heard? G. One can argue that this is different, since we are deciding what to say and withhold. But being ethical seems to require a sort of self-censorship. What if the upshot/outcome is a return to gaping silences...?

As a first-timer to MIRCI conference (Pantages Hotel, Toronto, June 2013), I was unsure what to expect. Turns out that was a good attitude, since the conference was richly varied, with voices from many sectors, representing ages, sexualities and even values. Great thinking experience. The sort of prepatory work that would go into building this coalition of voices is amazing. Thanks to Andrea O’Reilly and the group of women who support the work of MIRCI and Demeter. http://www.motherhoodinitiative.org/ I am suprised to find the piece that I’m still mulling over had to do with media depictions of mothers and fathers–particularly how the cup runneth over with dumb, undisciplined dads. Anyone say Homer or Peter Griffin?? Oh: also completely grateful to the woman who spoke as gay mother, commenting on sure way to put out flames of mommy wars–her point being that as a gay person, feeling guilty is an imposition that is culturally based and naturalized, and that part of the daily work of ...

Last week we were at the MIRCI Mega Motherhood conference in Toronto ( http://www.motherhoodinitiative.org/MegaBookletFinalJune14.pdf ) where we made a brief presentation about this blog to about 30 feminists who’re interested in some of the concerns we have about parents blogging about the lives of their children and their families. The issues we raised at the conference are the same ones we’ve raised here on our blog, including the tension between how to honour the authenticity of women’s/mother’s/parents’ voices and experiences, while also honouring the privacy and lives of children and other family members. And like us, participants expressed the need for further discussion around these primary questions and how to engage bloggers to ask these questions of themselves and others prior to pressing the publish button. We extended our open invitation to those at the conference, just as we have to you meeting us here, to join this online discussion and engage in a dialogic approach...

I must admit I’m getting exited like a little kid before a much anticipated event ~ there are only two more sleeps until the MIRCI Mega Motherhood Conference begins in Toronto at the Pantages Hotel and Spa and runs until Wednesday, June the 26th. The Mega Motherhood Conference is really three conferences in one: “Academic Motherhood” and “Communicating Motherhood” and “Mothers and Work”. ( http://www.motherhoodinitiative.org/MegaLocal.pdf ) Jaque and I will be speaking about our blog and inviting conference participants to join in a discussion about our concerns about the ethics of mommy blogging and also inviting them to share their thoughts with us on our blog. Our presentation “Mommy Blogging and Deliberative Dialogic Ethics: Collecting Community Interaction” takes place on Tuesday from 11:15-12:45 ( http://www.motherhoodinitiative.org/JuneMegaSchedule.pdf ). We’d love to have you join in the discussion there or on our blog afterwards. And we look forward to reporting on our exp...