(Anti)social media

If you're a mommy blogger extraordinaire like yours truly, chances are you're way too busy to read this post. After all, you have lunches and snacks to prepare, and suppers to throw on the table. You have overflowing laundry baskets, never mind that obsolete appliance formerly known as 'iron'.  Sit-ups to do (ok, so I lied, but don't tell anyone!). You have cheque books to balance, credit cards to pay off.  Oh, and blogs to write.  After all, they don't write themselves.  Shame on you for sitting there on your bee-hind...

Happy accidents

Recently, the phenomenon of mom blogging has come under fire in the press on both sides of the Atlantic. And even though I'm guilty of blogginess myself, I can sort of see where the critics are coming from.  Now, before you go flexing your manicured nails at my eyes, hear me out. I came to blogging like most mothers do, by happy accident.  I found out I was pregnant, and wanted to shout it from the treetops. More than that, at the time I lived thousands of miles from my closest friends and family, and used the mom blog as a vehicle to keep my peeps 'abreast' of my progressing pregnancy. Then Mr Green happened to tell his female colleagues about my blog and suddenly these strange (and strangely childless) creatures, all of whom I'd never met in the flesh, were interested in what I had to say on the subject. Forewarned and 'four'armed as we mothers invariably are.

Little fish in a ginormous pond

I then felt an obligation to throw the net wider, and began actually thinking in terms of Audience. In some respects, it's still weird to me that y'all out there are reading little ol' moi.  But along the way I have discovered many kindreds also striving to find humour and sanity in the every day realms of motherhood.  The community of mom bloggers out there is startlingly supportive.  And yet it also draining and competitive. There, I said it.  Companies have got wind of marketing potential and -- boom! -- many mom bloggers became 'mompreneurs', intent on getting the freebies that come from hosting contests and giveaways. 
Somewhere along the way, mom blogging became a viable stay-at-home career, and though I mean no disrespect to those making a living from it, I feel something has been lost.  Marketing certainly has its place, but lately it seems to be dominating the entire mombloggersphere, leaving little actual content in its place.

Which leads me to ask...

Just how much blogging is too much blogging?  How much time do you allot social media per week, and how do you regulate your schedule so that the Twitters, Facebooks, and Wordpresses of this world don't usurp time (better) spent with your tot or hubby?  At times I feel like I am drowning in the sociability of new media, and the demands it makes on my time seem endless.  I'm not proud to admit that Mr Green has had to boot me off the computer on more than one occasion! I know of couples who sit on either end of the sofa every evening, with their respective laptops propped open.  What a romantic glow -- not!  In a way, it does paint a funny picture.  But in an even bigger way, it's a sad commentary on the geeky and increasingly isolated age we live in.  And the irony of spending more time connecting with 'faceless' people online than with the actual faces IN MY HOME, is both cruel and sobering. 

Love squared

Don't get me wrong, I love blogging about motherhood, and I love you for digging what I type in this space. But sometimes I worry about where it's headed, and whether or not I'm losing something far more precious than that which I'm gaining.  And you?  What are your two cents?  After all, it wouldn't be a conversation without you...