Bloggity Blogging Blogness

So to practice for BlogHer, I went with Sarah to a blogger gathering here in Philly called Tequilacon. It was full of bloggers I don't know (with one exception--and I finally found my link to her blog). I worked hard to chat with folks, but man--in my old age, it has gotten SO HARD to schmooze like I used to. I ended up spending most of the evening playing with the temporary tattoos they had out (because I need MORE tattoos, obviously) and then chatting with this guy for a long time, who was rather sweet but looked! *edit* much younger to me then his 36 years. Then I had an interesting conversation with this guy, who I liked a lot (and has an adorable boy). But other than that, I mostly said hello to everyone and didn't manage to engage in a conversation with them. Part of that was because everyone was very busy getting drunk (fun for this recovering alcoholic) and part of it was because everyone knew each other and was busy hanging out. **edited to add: please don't think I'm down on Tequilacon! They were a sweet bunch of folks and were all nice to me, I just didn't have the energy to engage people who were obviously there to see people other than me.**

One thing that was interesting was that there were not very many "mommy" bloggers there, and since I have Mommy Blogging on the brain thanks to my new gig (first post is up at Type-A Mom!), I was on the lookout. I mentioned to a few folks that I was planning to go to BlogHer (most had heard of it, but didn't know much about it) and when I said that Heather Armstrong, better known as Dooce, is the keynote speaker, the most interesting thing happened: doors slammed in their eyes. One person told me, flat out, "You won't find any Dooce fans here."

Why? Maybe because in some circles (**edited to add: not necessarily Tequilacon folks!**) Mommy Blogging is often sneered at, and looked down on, by lots of other types of bloggers.

Heather's blog was one of the first I read (the first three were Dooce, Julie, and Getupgrrl) and yeah, I'm still a fan of hers. Plus, I am completely envious of her--I'd also love to support my entire family with this little blog of mine. And buy a new house and travel, like she does. But her fame comes with a downside, and part of it is this flat out hatred from some bloggers, and some of the stuff she recently addressed in her latest letter to her daughter (you know, the monthly letter idea I shamelessly stole from her).

This blog, like most of the blogs I read in the early days, started as an infertility blog. Many bloggers that I read devotedly, including Getupgrrl, vanished after they had children. Or they went password protected, or they use fake names for their kids, and many never, ever, ever post photos of their kids.

But then there are a handful like me (and like Heather) who don't blog anonymously, and post photos of their kids, and write post after post about their kids and what they are doing. Is this honest, or exploitative? Am I being unsafe and putting Tori at risk?

I was anonymous (although using my real first name) for the first two years I had this blog. It wasn't until I lost the twins and started getting some press coverage that I realized it was futile to continue to blog without discussing where I live and protecting my last name. Do I worry about that? Sure. If pro-life radicals wanted to make trouble for me, they could fairly easily find my house and, I don't know, picket it or something (not that it would be worth their while; I live in a quiet neighborhood and no one would really notice or care).

But am I exploiting Tori by writing about her here? Will she be damaged by the words I write in my blog about her? I'll admit this--I work hard to keep the stuff that drives me crazy about Tori to a minimum on here. I remember reading Dooce during Leta's (Leta being Heather's daughter) "screaming years" and wincing sometimes at the stuff she wrote about Leta. But now that Tori is almost two and screaming a bit herself, I begin to understand why she wrote about it and, in fact, derive comfort from knowing I'm not alone in coping with a screaming kid.

Just like Heather says in her latest entry.

Sure, I have ads, and I'd like more ad revenue (when I renamed my blog, I lost about 2/3 of the revenue I was earning because I broke a lot of old links, sadly. Someday I'll fix them all, like when Tori goes off to college and I have TIME). Sure, I'm using this little blog about my life and my family as a launching post to other writing gigs.

But I'm a WRITER. I've been a writer for many, many years, long before I ever blogged. But while my handful of published poems landed in tiny literary journals, more people read my words on the Internet in an hour than read all of the poems I published. So I try to write well, and about interesting things, and I work hard to stay connected to the people that are kind enough to read my blog (hey, without you guys, I'm nothing).

How do I keep myself and Tori safe? Well, I check my stats daily and watch who is linking to me. I have Google Alerts set to key phrases to make sure no one is inappropriately linking to photos (I do the same thing with the photos on Flickr). What else can I do? No, seriously, what else?

What do you think? Is Mommy Blogging dangerous and exploitative? I'll be writing more about this from a different angle over at Type-A Mom later this week, so I'm really interested in your opinions, good and bad.

But I'll tell you this; after you all stuck with me through my IVF cycle, the loss of my boys, and the birth of this glorious miracle that is currently using markers to draw on my legs, I simply cannot imagine walking away from you and your support and not letting you know how the story is turning out. Those bloggers that stopped writing after they had their kids? I miss them, terribly, every day and frankly, I feel somewhat robbed by their decision to stop sharing their lives after they have kids. So I'm still here, still writing, and I guess that makes me officially a Mommy Blogger (although Sarah insists I'm not). And I'm not going anywhere. You all are stuck with me. So are the folks at Drexel University's Week of Writers, where I'm speaking about blogging at 3pm today. Hope they are as kind to me as you are. :)