The headlining speaker for the Women’s Expo here over the weekend … Mario Lopez.
When I heard the ad on the radio - “Women’s Expo, featuring special guest Mario Lopez” I actually thought it was an April Fool.
It wasn’t.
My local newspaper is as late to the blogging party as me – or perhaps it’s just a reflection of our local world. In either event, the Star Tribune reports that blogs are, as we’ve worried, a place for moms (and a few dads they suggest) to continue a war of words against each other about the choices we make as parents.
We seem to have mostly avoided controversy here (although that could be a function of readership), so (never one to take the news at its word) I looked around a bit to see if the judging is really as pronounced as the article suggests. While most of what I discovered was supportive and interesting conversation, I did find a few examples of this ‘judginess’. My favorite, over at Urban Mommies, someone named linda walks right into my favorite cliche about working mothers when she comments:
“Why did you have kids to have them raised my a nanny? I love when people have kids, hand them off to a nanny so they can go off to job/play then call themselves mommy. Tell your kid the truth- the money and your self esteem is more inportant then [sic] she is. Don’t be surprised when your [sic] old that she sends you away to a home or worse becasue [sic] she is now busy with her stuff.”
But, again, that was one comment of 6, and, that said, I didn’t find all that much warring out there. I concluded that one of two things is happening: either I generally avoid blogs where judgment lives, or the problem’s not as bad as the news suggests.
What do you all see in your surfing? Is the blog the underground home of the mommy wars?
A thread over at ALOTT5MA alerted me to this news story about a popular Mommy Tracks topic. Three girls are told by the principal of their high school that they can’t do a reading from The Vagina Monologues at a school event. They do it anyway and are suspended.
The blogs are abuzzing. But what say you?
I think I might start a new category called “I Googled It For You” full of information you didn’t even know you wanted.
Having heard the Ice-Missile Mom received 5 years probation instead of jail time, and wanting to provide a relevant link, I searched “Ice mom probation.” While I did ultimately find the appropriate link I was shocked by the many crimes other moms have committed that earned the same, or similar, penalty. A sampling:
Having no direct knowledge about the circumstances of those cases, I make no arguments either way about the appropriateness of the penalties, but I do think, under the circumstances, Ice-Missile Mama should probably be allowed to get back to parenting, don’t you?
In a fit of road rage, a mother of three throws a cup of ice through her car window at another car. No injuries, but apparently she’s been convicted of a felony – lobbing a ‘missile’ at an automobile – and earned the minimum sentence – 2 years in prison. She’s already spent a month in jail - away from her three children, while her husband serves his third tour in Iraq. Some reports indicate that the woman’s pregnant sister was also in the car – having early CONTRACTIONS!
There’s a possibility the sentence will be decreased by the judge, but everyone involved has been surprised it’s gotten this far. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen worse road rage than this!
Updated to Add: If you came here via a direct link, be sure to read our thoughts on the penalty.
Write well on your blog and you might eventually be rewarded professionally for it, but be very careful what you say because you could be fired for the exact same ranting, critical observations that got you hired in the first place, but … wait, it was just a blog, so you might get re-hired, after they spend at least a day figuring the way to word it that best appeases the mainstream media viewing public and those ’netroots’ people who read blogs all at the same time.
Hopefully it will warm up soon, because I clearly need to get outside to play and return to writing mom humor.