Blog. Bloggers. Blogging. What’s the issue with these words? Blogs rule. Fact. In case you missed it, yesterday was a bit special for this blog. It received thousands upon thousands of views in 24 hours – and all from a mention in the paper whose logo I’ve put up here… Thank you for coming to read my blog. It made Sunday very exciting! But now, I’m embarrassed. Because my personal blog is not all singing and dancing. It’s a free wordpress theme. It’s just me. Pootling along. So I have’t spent my time making this a fancy blog… In fact, it’s the polar opposite of my work life, where I do the all singing and dancing things for clients. But more important than my worries about my blog needing a makeover, there’s something more pressing for me to deal with – what do I write about next?
I promise that this is the last time I’m going to give her air time, but that Liz Jones piece was not just derogatory about me. And I don’t want anyone to think that I’m so self absorbed that I didn’t notice the other things she wrote. It was also negative about women and women who choose to stay at home or feel that part of their vocation, having had children, is to stay at home and be with them – she wasn’t just annoyed with mothers who blog, but women in general, for having babies and taking time to raise them. But that’s not the point of this particular post. I want to focus on something else…
For me it’s about her derision – and I do feel it was derision when she wrote that women who blog are:
“In their own world: More and more mothers are spending most of the day telling the world all about their home life…” and that we “ignore the child about to toddle into the glass wall that makes kitchen and garden seamlessly as one…”
Women and in particular, parent bloggers, actually do a lot of good in the world. We hold each other’s hands when times are hard emotionally and/or physically. We help each other work out what’s happening if we’re not sure if something is right or not, with our children. We laugh together, cry together and whilst yes, there’s a fair bit of bitching (which I’ve thankfully been able to avoid to date….) we raise a lot of money for charity together. And don’t forget, that we provide each other with lots of ways to save money, make money and ensure that when we do spend, it’s on the things that are most likely to make life better/easier/more fun for our own families. I’ve made significant purchasing decisions based on information from other bloggers on what’s good and what needs avoiding.
So if we are an online version of the WI (I think she meant that as an insult) then I don’t think that’s a bad thing. In fact, I want to celebrate it. I don’t mind sharing with you that there are three bloggers in particular that I would call on, if I had a problem, before some members of my family. That’s how connected I feel to them. They get me. They accept me. I think that all three of them would get a train, plane or automobile to come to my aid if I needed them. And these relationships have all come from our shared love of blogging.
I am conscious that I sound defensive. I suppose in part, that’s because I am. I feel protective of the other people – men and women, that I know and blog along with. I’m proud of the fact that I blog. I don’t care that Liz Jones doesn’t do blogging and doesn’t know how to tweet. It’s up to her. Live and let live. What I do object to, is her peddling her views in the national media and attributing quotes to people that are completely made up on her part, to fill the word count for a piece with a deadline, putting other people down who she hasn’t even taken the time to fact check with.
Communities spring up all the time and the one that I’m part of, well, surely it’s another one of them – forged on mutual interests? It’s a community that’s borne from our shared musings. I wonder, with her frank admittance that she has very few friends and no significant relationships in her life, that perhaps Liz Jones was actually quite jealous of seeing the bonds that the women at the Mumsnet Blogfest had?
So that’s that. Live and let live. I’m sorry that her car was pelted with eggs and that she didn’t make any friends in her rural adventure. Apparently someone else took an air rifle to her letterbox. That’s not the right thing to do. Instead, I wish her a Christmas that finds her with people who love her, for who she is, good and bad, just like the blogging community do me……
PS. If you know me, and read this blog regularly, I swear that normal service will be resumed tomorrow. I’m going to write about going swimming, taking my old costume by mistake and my right boob falling out on every single length I did. And that I have attributed the burning sensation I felt was my shame, rather than the fact that I was sweating my butt off and wheezing constantly…
PPS. Need to put links to examples of everything I’ve referred to. Will do that tomorrow.
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