Moms help moms through blogs

Mothers need tips on keeping house and raising babies, not advice on eyeliner application.

By Barbara Curtis

from the April 3, 2007 edition

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Waterford, Va. - When major media freaked at the news last month that moms in droves were ditching TV morning shows in favor of mommy blogs, one group wasn't at all surprised – the mommy bloggers and readers themselves.

Because the reality behind the startling statistic – nearly 450,000 women TV viewers lost last season (a decline of about 10 percent) – is as up close and personal as your next-door neighbor. One reader of my blog captured this intimacy perfectly:

"I really see the blogging community, for moms, as an 'over the back fence' community. Our grandmothers would visit with other neighbors as they hung out the laundry, they would chat with the milkman maybe, or catch up at the butcher shop, but in modern times we live in a world of strangers. It really brings in a sense of community."

That's according to Lisa Stauber, whom I met at the virtual backyard fence, even though we're 500 miles apart. Lisa is a mother of six and a recent transplant from Denver to small-town South Carolina. Reeling from isolation and culture shock, she turned to mom blogs to find her bearings.

Multitasking moms

She found so much more: a vibrant and diverse community of multitasking moms who might not have time to handle an uninterrupted phone call during the day, but who've discovered they can opine on matters of worldly importance (or just their kids' latest escapades) in between loads of laundry and peanut butter sandwiches. Women who've learned, like Agatha Christie, that "the best time for planning a book [or, as modern moms have found, a blog entry] is when you're doing the dishes." Women who know that in today's world – where you might be the only stay-at-home mom on the block – you don't have to move 2,000 miles to feel isolated.

They've learned that they don't have to turn on the TV as a lifeline to the "real" world. At some point while visiting over the back fences, they've discovered that the world portrayed on morning shows is far from real or relevant anyway. As Julie Jackson, a former morning show viewer who now reads my blog, explained: "I find the big three morning shows are simply a daily PR machine designed to get me to buy new makeup, or 'the new little black dress' for spring, or to attend a movie première. I don't need to spend an hour watching advertisements posing as a talk show. Mommy blogs generally talk about what matters to me as a mom. I don't need more tips on eyeliner application – I need tips on how to keep my housework under control while I try to raise babies into adults."

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