While procrastinating in order to avoid doing any actual creative writing of my own today, I wasted a couple of hours link hopping around the blogosphere. I found some potential kindred spirits (and a bunch of folks that left me scratching my head and wondering WTF?) ....
The folks at BlogHer were a little lathered up about a recent episode of Oprah. Evidently a bunch of mommybloggers were on the show and the topic was mommy-angst. Here's an interesting post on that subject. I should not comment because: (a) I did not see the show [I think I may be the only person in America who has never watched an entire episode of Oprah. Five minutes is probably the longest I have been able to stay tuned to her show.] and (b) I would not have continued watching it once the whining and sniveling started (see above on giving up on Oprah in less than five minutes).
However, I am qualified to speak on the subject of motherhood from a blogger's perspective. I have been an at-home mom and I have been a working mom. I am not exactly an Earth Mother, but I do the best I can.
No doubt about it: Being a mom is not a Sunday picnic: Sleep deprivation during infancy; Establishing authority and consistency in toddler-hood; The ups and downs of Elementary School; the horrors of Middle School, etc. Being an at-home mom can be isolating, but it can also be seen as a blessed gift of alone-time to think and ponder and experience creativity from the inside out -- at least that was my experience. Being a working mom can be exhausting, but it has its compensations as well; I like to think that it is good for my daughter to see me as a competent professional apart from being a mom.
Motherhood. Marriage. Career. Life. It all involves juggling, making choices. Some days are better than others. Some days totally suck, in fact, but there are other days filled with love and wonder and glory. Tell me that it is not worth everything when you kid or your husband gives you an unexpected hug and says, "I love you"!!
Writing about the bad experiences is fun and cathartic for those of us who express ourselves with words. We exaggerate and turn into humor what may have been initially a painful experience. What we write often originates with a kernel of a true experience, but storytelling and writing techniques take over, and the end result is a "story", not necessarily a factually accurate account of what really happened, but it may [we hope] be entertaining as hell, perhaps because it's just a bit scandalous.
Were those women really just sitting around pissing and moaning about how excruciatingly difficult it is to be a mom and confessing to egregious behavior .... or were they a bunch of writer/storytellers sitting around trying to out-do each other with their tales. I betcha half of those stories could have started with, "Oh, yeah? Well, listen to this...." I'm guessing those women were engaging in intentional hyperbole and outrageous storytelling: perhaps even satire. It was probably all supposed to be funny. The problem is those daytime talk shows don't understand satire. They are all about people crying and spilling their deepest, darkest secrets for the entertainment of the masses.
These women go on TV and tell outrageous stories that are supposed to be funny in order to plug their blogs, and people take them seriously? Sad. So. Very. Sad.
Erma Bombeck is probably spinning in her grave ... or maybe she's knocking back a few at St. Peter's Pub with Molly Ivins and talking about what a bunch of twits women can be.
And besides, don't people have anything better to do than sit around and watch Oprah? Um... or read blogs, for that matter. [NIW puts head in a paper bag....]
No comments:
Post a Comment