Leave a comment: mommyblogs and the everyday struggle to reclaim parenthood

Abstract

“Mommyblogs” are significant for feminist media theory, given how these give mothers a public venue to voice their experiences and anxieties at a stage of life that often generates new feminist insight. Whereas previous generations of mothers relied on interpersonal communication and books authored by professional experts, contemporary mothers are more likely to seek parenting information and offer advice by reading and responding to blogs. These media texts are also bases of communal support, blurring older theories of audience “reception” and complicating notions of expertise, authority, and power. Analysis of comments about two controversies—one involving the measles vaccination, the other about so-called free-range parenting—posted to the New York Times Motherlode blog shows that parenting blogs enable audience members—not only women but also men—to debate parenting decisions that result from neoliberal imperatives. Commenters both endorse neoliberal parenting, framing it as an exercise in good decision-making and risk management that yields positive outcomes, and contest it, arguing that parenting must contribute to social and collective justice. The audience thereby discursively participates in an everyday form of activism that enables citizens to help shape the terms of public debate.

KEYWORDS:

• Blogging
• motherhood
• audience reception
• Motherlode
• Well Family
• vaccination
• free-range parenting

Notes

1. During the California gold rush, miners followed the gold-bearing sands upstream to discover the source of the gold, the so-called “mother lode.”

2. A particular blog may, of course, attract a particular taste public; and parenting sites can take different approaches, including ones inflected by race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and economic or political privilege. Motherlode editor KJ Dell’Antonia (2015d) has lightly bragged about her “A list” commenters but does not indicate how her philosophy or the site tilts toward a specific kind of educated middle-class audience.

3. Scholars and bloggers increasingly regard the term mommyblogs as trivializing, but the alternative “mom blog” has not been embraced.

4. That is, the New York Times is for-profit, but the specific site offers a forum for discussion and information exchange that is not product based.

5. Capitalizing on the marketing opportunity that arose when journalists dubbed her “America’s Worst Mom,” Skenazy promotes her response to “fear soup” (fear of lawsuits, injury, abductions, blame) in speeches, a website, and a book (Lenore Skenazy 2009) debunking a variety of parental fears and media-sponsored hysteria.

6. Motherlode ran articles dealing with all sorts of vaccinations, such as HPV and flu.

7. Each author drafted one issue, but read all posts and comments regarding the other issue; and we consulted regarding interpretation.

8. Dell’Antonia (2015d) says she rejects comments that are inflammatory, name-calling, rude, irrelevant, incoherent, or obscene. In any case, the vast majority of responses to her explanation expressed deep appreciation of her “moderation.” WhackyDad, however, objected: “To think we need mommy to filter out any post that might be offensive is an insult to those of us who participate. So what if we get an occasional troll? … [I]f I get called a jerk or some other unflattering name every now and then, I can handle it.”

9. We thank the editors of this special issue for this point.