A letter to my mommyblogger

It was like turning a corner and stumbling into a fight. For weeks, I've seen references to a conference of women bloggers, called “Blogher”. Cute name. My first reaction was condescending. How derivative. Why does everything have to be about subdivisions of communities? Are we already so far into the establishment of the blogosphere that we have to carve it up into walled camps in search of camaraderie? Black bloggers, gay bloggers, hermaphrodite hispanic bloggers. Second reaction: Hey, if that's their thing, whatever. Hope they have a good time. Didn't give it much more thought. Then, some of my favorite blog writers started returning from the conference enraptured. Turns out they had, um, yeah, a good time. Their normally gently moderated voices were ecstatic with connections lovingly made and self-esteem highs. And I thought, gosh, what a good thing that is. So, whence the street fight? One sour note came through several of the post-Blogher re-caps. Apparently, as with any community that feels marginalized, some Bloghers felt the need to marginalize some of their own. Hence, a few of my favorite bloggers were cut down for being nothing more than “mommy-bloggers”: women whose blogs have generous lashings of their experience as mothers. Apparently they're guilty of not writing about, ahem, more important things. At least some of their more self-important Blogher attendees thus spake. So, Dooce, Finslippy, Mrs Kennedy, Melissa, Sweetney, Jen, Manda, and all you friends of the Mommy-Bs: This is a love letter to you. There's an easy, all too easy, come-back to the sheila who decided on your behalf that there are more important things you could be writing about: You're changing the world one child at a time. But fuck that lame sentimental crap, no matter how true it may be. You're changing the world one sentence, one paragraph, one blog post at a time. You're changing the world one reader at a time. You rock because your voices are strong, honest, assertive, funny, sexy, raw, joyful and loving. And never mind how rare it is to find that potent cocktail among women; it's too fucking rare among us all. And rare means precious. You make me laugh, you teach me, you make me think, you excite me, you make me care. And that means that what you write makes me return. Again and again. When I'm not alternating between being attracted and intimidated by your writing, your wit, and your honesty, I'm torn between wanting to have you all come over for banana bread and margaritas, and wanting to keep you all to myself, one at a time, in private moments, watching your lives unfold, at a distance, like an intimate movie. That you invite us all in to see your world through your eyes is a gift of intimacy. So few writers, never mind bloggers, achieve the intimacy and directness you do. And that is a gift few have the gonads to give. It is in your generosity that you lead by example, whether you ever intended to, or not. You are righteous exhibitionists. The power of what you do is in who you are and how you write as much as it is in what you write about. The personal is political. I couldn't give a shit about mommy diaries. Yet I care a lot about you and what you have to say. Why? Because you get inside, and you move me. You make me want more of your view in the world around me. So, on with your talk of labor and poop and depression; your conflicted joy and hopes and dreams; and your husbands and lovers and pasts and penises; and boobs, and mammaries and teats! Not only do these things fail to define you; they fail even to begin. Oh, the humanity! Of thee, mommybloggers, I sing! Claim the label, and run with it into the birth canals of every great idea, of every beautifully expressed funky self-declarative thought, of every utterance and glimpse your readers devour. And as for anyone who suggests you are less, somehow, because you're mommybloggers, well, she should just go ahead and sell her tits on e-Bay, 'cause already she don't have near what it takes to stand beside the towering women you are. Thank God it would be a faux pas to call this post a blowjob. I dare anyone to go there. Dooce: http://www.dooce.com/ Finslippy: http://finslippy.typepad.com/finslippy/ Suburban bliss: http://www.suburbanbliss.net/ Sweetney: http://www.sweetney.com/ Mandajuice: http://mandajuice.typepad.com/mandajuice/ Fussy: http://fussy.org/ Jenandtonic: http://www.jenandtonic.ca/