Parents who blog.

This entry from Mommy Wants Vodka really resonated with me.

Okay, sure, I realize I'm a nobody in blogland and trust me, I truly harbor no delusions of becoming "The Next Big Blogger".  Really, I write too poorly and too spastically and unedited and grammatically preposterous, and I sometimes* make up words (*often), to become noticed.  That's totally cool, yo'.   
And so while I'll never be keynoting at BlogHer (or even attending for that matter), I still feel like my little scratchy blog posts are good for me to keep popping out here and there.  Why?  It's sort of a connection to my peers - my "co workers" if you will.  What Becky writes about how you don't just get to pop over next door for a cup of coffee is TRUE.  I'm a total Mom's group reject!  I'm either too liberal, too NOT liberal, not Lily Pulitzered and Vera Bradleyed enough, my kids eat the other kids snacks and leave snot trails on the sofas, my hair defies all attempts at correction and my car needs washer fluid.  I'm so not a groupie.  I've tried.  I've failed.  I have zero connections anymore with anyone remotely near me.  I've moved twice in less than fifteen months and both were ACROSS THE COUNTRY (South to North, then back South again).  It easily takes a year to establish firm(ish) links with people and so, you spend a lot of time alone just talking to your children or sometimes snatch a few words with the other exasperated and likely terribly lonely mother at the play area at the mall.

Why do you do it?  Why stay home if it's a friggin' grind?  A chore!  Blast ye' woman, bitching and moaning about the luxury of staying home raising your babies!  I mean, yeah, I gave up a luxurious job as a professional archaeologist (oh wait, did I say luxurious? L.O.L.)  Not complaining about archaeology, or my former employers, yo', but seriously, working every day in an office with deadlines and stressors and budgets and looming recessions and falling housing markets is not really a fiesta everyday, either.  I mean, come on, um, isn't complaining about work while you are AT WORK, with your coworkers and often your boss, a national pastime?  But the workplace did offer something that staying home to raise children in today's cultural condition commonly lacks - adult interaction.  And it is hard to go day in and day out with nary a word to someone who can complete a sentence without putting the words "Buzz Lightyear" in it.

But for all that, the frequent loneliness, the guilt over my graduate student loans and me NOT using my graduate degree, I suppose, is nothing when I consider just how fortunate I am to be able to be home and spend these fleeting years with my little ones.  I wouldn't give this up for new snake boots and self-typing grog tempered cordmarked sherds, no ma'am.  (archaeology joke).  I want my children to look at me and think I was a success because I chose to stay home with them.  If my children go on to have children someday, I hope the world makes it so they can choose to stay home (or not) without stigma.  I'd love to, LOVE to see more mothers (and fathers!) being able to stay at home.  I believe in it.  I think it's important and I'd love live in a world that made this possible for I know that many more people would choose it if they could.  And for those who don't, that's FINE, but it should, ideally, be a choice.

So, for those of us who do happen to be in the SAHM and SAHD career path, I say, blogging has become one of the most empowering facets of this occupation.  I know that it takes a lot of heat.  A bunch of women and some men in their jammies while Jr. watches Sesame Street leisurely snacking on scones in front of their computer is often the misrepresented vision of the parenting blogger.  But that's such bullshit.  I've become emotionally attached to people I've never met; their stories, their lives, move me and inspire me.  I've wept over the loss of babies and children, feeling 1/100th of the pain that parent has felt and reached out and left a note to them, that, hey, someone hears you.  Your grief is real.  I laugh at antics of other people's toddlers, very much like my own and feel solidly connected with a shared experience, even though I've never met them.  I'm challenged daily to be a better parent, a better me and surprisingly, more empathetic each and every day to all the other parents out there doing just what I am.

Sure, we may not be the bestest writers.  Likely many of us drink too much coffee and spend too much money on Etsy.  But there is a connection between this rather enormous group of parents who blog.  And while to some it may seem cliche and unsexy, it is, I assure you, real.