There’s been a lot of nastiness on the internet lately. Stuff I don’t want to buy into, but a lot of it seems to stem from judgment. Often without consideration of context.
Let’s face it we all are guilty of a little judging from time to time. It’s human nature. For me as I have gotten older I judge less. There’s two reasons for this.
1. The more broader experience you have in life, the more you interact with a cross section of people and as you come to know them, often with that comes a greater understanding and empathy for the context from within they do what they do.
2. And more the point I am going to raise, is that in becoming a mother I have had to accept and learn about some of my own weaknesses and shortcomings and cut myself some slack. This has flowed onto how I view other mums. It’s tough business this parenting caper and I think that because we all hate being judged as mothers (and fathers for those few men who are reading this) we are more accepting and less likely to judge other parents.
I will emphasize less likely because there are plenty of people out there who just don’t “get it” and are shockers at this stuff.
There’s much written in social media circles about about being less judgmental of other mothers and I know that I for one have been trying hard to judge less and understand more. Let me tell you, the same is applicable to us Mummy Bloggers.
I read a comment on Facebook this week, where a reader noted she had unfollowed several blogs recently as the women writing them were running giveaways, or talking too much about how many followers they had, or run advertising.
I see this a lot.
It’s happened to me. I usually loose a couple of likers on Facebook any time I promote a giveaway or an achievement I am proud of.
And you know what, it’s perfectly ok for people to make the decision that those sorts of things aren’t for them. But let me tell you, that just like judging mothers, sometimes there needs to be similar consideration given to context on blogs.
This blogging gig can be tricky business. Many of us are initially wooed by the prospect of PR companies and brands wanting to give us free stuff so we figure why not share it with readers.
Let’s face it – put your hand up Mummy Blogger if you’ve ever thought after reading about how much Dooce makes from her blog that there’s a slight glimmer of hope you’ll make a few dollars to help keep your kids in school shoes? I am sure most hands will be up in the privacy of their own space.
Blogging mothers are just like any other mum - trying to do their best for their families and themselves. Perhaps earn a few bucks to at least cover the cost of their site hosting, design, domain registration and/or blogging events – which for many I know started out as a great excuse to meet new people and develop skills that had stagnated whilst being out of the paid workforce caring for their kids.
What ever the motivation, does it matter? So much about blogging is trial and error. If you don’t like something that all of a sudden crops up on one of your favorite blogs, why not drop the author a private email with some friendly constructive criticism?
I unfollow pages and blogs that are no longer of interest to me and that’s just life. Friends come and go as you go through various stages.
Save the bitchy comments. Put it down to change. Don’t in your mind rubbish someone because they are having a crack at something, testing the water, putting themselves out there.
Us Mummy bloggers are mums with feelings too.
Just because we write a blog, doesn’t mean we aren’t going through the same shit as everyone else.
I know I’ll lose a few followers for this post!
The rest of you, just hang in there.
