I had a very interesting day yesterday, and I want to write about. But I'm nervous. Because in one fell swoop, my day yesterday represents a combination of nearly everything that is controversial in the world of so called "mommy blogging."
Part of me feels an urge that is typical of me; a need to identify future criticism and counter it in advance, wanting to both defend myself and apologize for disappointing people for not living up to some ideal that I think you have of me. This is a behavior I dislike in myself, but one that is so deeply ingrained thanks to a combination of contributing factors that range from being an only child with a young single mother to being an alcoholic to being the daughter of an alcoholic, that I can only be grateful that today I am aware of this tendency and am doing my best to fight it. But it's there, and I know it, and I will fight it in this post but it will probably crop up anyway.
I've been blogging now for five years and seven months. That's roughing a million years in blog time, since the vast majority of blogs (current guesses place them at around 300 million) are only updated for two months and then abandoned. What started for me as a quick and easy way to share with my friends about my infertility struggles has grown and changed immensely. While I've been a writer throughout my life (I wrote my first poem that I tried to get published when I was five), it wasn't until I began blogging that I truly felt like a writer, and that I feel like I fully found my writing "voice." As the years have passed, blogging became more than just my personal journal. It's become the center post of my life and my profession, and one of the core elements of my identity. I am a writer. I am a blogger. And you know what? I'm pretty fucking good at it.
Because I have embraced this fact, and because I've been one of the lucky few bloggers that has actual readers, a lot of interesting opportunities come my way. And this brings us to the first controversial point about being a "mommy blogger" today; there is a perception out there that we -- and I mean the "global" we of the mommy blogging world -- are being offered hundreds of free trips, gadgets, and toys ALL THE TIME and that we are all rolling in ad revenue/freebies/sponsorships, etc, etc, etc. And truthfully, there might be a couple of bloggers that is true for. There are women that happen to be mothers that have found a way to earn a living by forging relationships with public relations reps and companies, and promoting/reviewing/doing projects with those companies. My feeling about that? Good for them. If you can earn a living working online, fuck yeah, DO IT.
I am not one of those bloggers, though. I have been blessed with two relationships with companies (23andMe and PBS Sprout), one as a professional blogger and one as a blogging resource. And yes, I get all kinds of pitches and offers emailed to me daily, BUT the VAST majority of those pitches include either "we give you pretty much nothing and you promote us on your awesome blog!" or "please attend our event that is far away from you but do it on your own dime and we might give you lunch but then we expect you to promote this on your blog." Such as a super cool event where I'd get to tour the studio where Sesame Street is filmed, a lifelong dream of mine actually (I have, after all, been a Sesame Street fan since the very first episode, and credit it for my early reading ability and lifelong love of words, reading, and writing), but I'd have to drive/take a bus or train up to New York City and then get paid nothing to promote this event on my blog.
And I refuse to do that. Because I am worth more than that, and frankly even more important, YOU, my readers, are worth more than that. If I am going to shill something on this blog, I will damn well see value in it, and the company will also see value in me.
If you add up the small amounts of ad revenue I've earned on this blog in all the time I've been writing it, toss in the handfuls of "swag" I've gotten, add in the sponsored trips (three in total, two to blogging conferences), subtract the time I've spent writing reviews for the free stuff (not always here either), traveling to events on my own, etc, etc, etc, you know what you get? I've made, roughly, a whopping twelve cents an hour or so from this blog. If that.
But. I have had amazing experiences, met absolutely staggeringly brilliant and remarkable people, fallen more and more in love with writing, became spectacularly comfortable in my own skin, and learned SO MUCH from both other bloggers and the folks that read this here blog. This blog has become an amazing element in my personal evolution, and I wouldn't trade a second of it, including the nasty, for anything.
Which leads me to yesterday.
Thursday afternoon, just as I was starting to get Tori ready for her ballet class, I got an email from one of my favorite bloggers that she and a couple of my other favorite bloggers were going to be in town and did I want to get together with them? DID I? Of course I did! After ballet I tossed Charlie and Tori from the car and flew into the city to have dinner with them. We gabbed, I met a couple new cool bloggers, and I found out why they were in town. Then the PR rep that arranged their arrival showed up, saw me, and blurted, "I tried to reach you!" and invited me to join these fine women (and one other) the following day on a field trip. I said sure, he bought my dinner, and I came back down to the hotel the next day and joined them for what turned out to be a fascinating experience.
And here comes part two of the controversy. We were bussed out to a vaccine packaging plant for Glaxo Smith Kline. And right there you have it all. Big company! Big Pharma! VACCINES, for fuck's sake! And hapless "mommy bloggers" being schmoozed and bamboozled. Right?
But let me tell you what I saw.
I saw a company desperate to get its message across successfully, and willing to work with people that they consider to be major influencers to do it. In fact, they didn't call us "mommy bloggers." They called us "social media influencers" which frankly I kind of like, professionally speaking. I saw a company willing to bring in women that would question them, women that were not sure about vaccines and their connection to diseases (yes, including autism), women who were not "media" or "consumers" but were somewhere between the two, and women that would leave the event and say whatever the fuck they wanted to about the company, the vaccines, and the people we met. But Glaxo Smith Kline did it anyway.
I also saw a company that appears to treat its employees remarkably well, including a site manager that left in the middle of our tour to go pick up her son, because they have a flexible work schedule for their employees. I saw a brilliant engineering mind that directed the entire site, who was also a gorgeous woman. And most compelling of all, I saw a scientist the moment he realized it was HIS vaccine -- the one he'd slaved over for many years -- on the conveyor belt being packaged as he nearly tear up and then beamed like a kid at Christmas.
I also saw pictures of sick kids, kids that died or were horribly injured from diseases we no longer have to deal with because of vaccines. (Yes, I am pro-vaccine, I vaccinate my child, and I worry about the loss of herd immunity when large numbers of people don't vaccinate, yet I respect the fact that people worry about vaccines and choose to not vaccinate even if I don't agree with it, but I am prepared for the fury, so go ahead.) Yes, I was fully aware that I was being manipulated by a company that earns plenty of money from said vaccines, but when I saw the little girl with polio in the iron lung and she looked just like Tori, I cried, and I felt immensely grateful that I don't have to worry about Tori contracting that particular disease because it has nearly COMPLETELY left us thanks to vaccines.
So I found the day fascinating and touching, and left with a slightly more favorable view of one tiny sliver of the massive corporation I generally do NOT believe has consumers best interests at heart. Even more exciting, I got to spend the day with a group of spectacular women, including about six hours in the bus thanks to Philly's awesome fucking traffic. So I spent the day learning something, having lengthy in-depth and fascinating conversations with women I respect, and I got a free dinner out of.
It might not be why I started blogging, but when opportunities like this come up I'd be an idiot not to take them and gain more experiences and knowledge, and yeah, occasionally some free stuff. I'll probably continue to do so.
And that, my dear friends (if you are still reading this ridiculously long post) is what I did on Friday. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
