Guest Blogger Andrea Buchanan - author of Mother Shock: Loving Every (Other) Minute of It.

"The Secret Life of Mothers: Maternal Narrative, Momoirs, and the Rise of the Blog"

When I first began sending around my proposal for "Mother Shock" three years ago, I encountered what were at the time, for me, surprising reactions from publishers.

Mothers don't read.

Mothers don't buy books.

Books on mothering don't sell.

Convincing a publisher to take on a book about motherhood – specifically a book about the "dark side" of motherhood – seemed as difficult as convincing someone at a cocktail party that I was actually a real person despite the fact that I'd given birth.

I was surprised at this. After all, didn't any of these publishers watch "Oprah"? Surely they'd heard about her book club. Surely they understood that the people buying all those books were mothers – who presumably did know how to read.

But no. Motherhood was "played out," I was told. "A crowded field." "A tough sell."

Funny. I had been motivated to write my book precisely because I wasn't finding all that much that spoke to me about my own experience as a mother – my ambivalence, my questioning of the identity suddenly thrust upon me, my reckoning of intense love for my child with intense culture shock at my new life as a mom. Evidently, I was an anomaly. My questions should be answered by what was out there in the played-out, crowded field.

And to be sure, there were a few texts that resonated. Still, a dozen books does not a crowded field make. Motherhood was the most radicalizing experience of my life. The identity shift I was navigating was the kind of transformative, powerful experience that women have been experiencing, well, since there were women. So, really? That's it? A dozen books and the question's answered? The attitude seemed to be, what could be less compelling than the secret life of moms?

In fiction we have been treated to a glimpse of this secret life through books like Allison Pearson's "I Don't Know How She Does It," and a few others. These books feature fast-paced, frenetic, funny superwomen cutting corners as they juggle career and kids; the narrators are ironic, and often grapple with the fear that motherhood is hobbling them as career women and that their career is negatively affecting their ability to mother. Pearson's book was well-received, but not, I think, as mainstream fiction. Her book, and the books that followed in its wake, sport a new genre title: "mommy lit," maternal big sister to "chick lit."

I was struck, however, by the acclaim with which Tom Perrota's book, "Little Children" was heralded when it was published last summer. The novel, which focuses on the experience of parents in suburbia, was hailed as "literary, suburban fiction" – not "Daddy lit," as you might expect, being a work of fiction written by a father, taking parenting as its subject. No, this was "the great suburban novel." I couldn't help thinking that if a mother had written a book called "Little Children" with goldfish crackers on the front cover, inside snarking about playground politics and playdates, and detailing the interactions between intensive maternal moms and slacker moms, her book definitely would have been called "Mommy Lit."

I also couldn't help remembering what my friend author Faulkner Fox told me about Rachel Cusk's remark after the chilly reception to her lovely book, "A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother." The book, an exploration of her work as a parent, was a departure from Cusk's usual fiction writing, and she is reported to have said, of the book and it's unfavorable response, "Writing a book about motherhood was career suicide."

As Faulkner put it: What does that mean for those of us who write about motherhood at the beginning of our literary careers? Are we committing career homicide?

Thankfully, no. What we are doing, evidently, is writing "momoirs." This is not to be confused with the more respectable "memoir" genre. When mother-writers write about their own personal experience, it's a "momoir." That is, "memoir," with all its literary cachet, plus "mommy," with all its negative connotations.

The ambivalence with which publishers embrace this exploding genre was never more obvious than when I received a book in the mail last month, with a letter from the publisher requesting a blurb from me. The letter began, "When I received this author's manuscript on my desk last summer, I thought I was in for yet another – ITALICIZED – PARENTING book. Instead, I was thrilled to discover an engaging, hilarious, and gorgeously written exploration of motherhood."

I happen to know that this publisher is a new mother herself – one who presumably might be in fact the target audience for a book about the dreaded subject of parenting. It struck me that even the publisher thought it was necessary to persuade me – a writer of a book on motherhood – that it was thrilling to find a parenting book that somehow managed to defy its stereotype by being – wait for it – well written.

Evidently, mothers not only do not read books or buy books or go to bookstores for book readings, they also do not write books very well.

What is a mother to do when the writing she wants to read isn't there? When the only discussion about maternal ambivalence is the one in the glossy magazine about whether to get the Bugaboo or the Frog stroller? When the only real talk of juggling is in reference to the entertainment at the birthday party you must plan for as though it is a royal wedding?

Mothers, as we know, are incredibly resourceful. So mothers who do not find themselves in what they read have begun to create their own narrative and to publish it in a place where anyone with access to a computer can find it: the internet.

Five years ago, when my first child was born, it was all about the bulletin boards – online places like HipMama, Mamatron, Mothering. These boards were contentious; in fact, that was often part of the perverse fun, waiting to see who was going to blow up the breast-feeding board by talking about formula, watching as AP'ers duked it out with working moms with six-week-olds in full-time day care. However fraught with in-fighting these boards were, they were an important connection for many moms who did not have the real-life infrastructure to support them in their day-to-day mothering. Gradually, though, the weblog has begun to supplant the bulletin board
as a way for mothers to express their views online.

In the blogs written by mothers, we find women writing about their intensely personal experiences of motherhood. The word BLOG – it reminds of BLURT – and in fact, sometimes that's what these things turn out to be – snatches of conversation, quick transcripts of a person's day, a Bridget Jones-like tally of routine events, or even startlingly personal admissions – the kinds of revelations you might share with only very close friends. The real, gritty, funny, mundane, sometimes boring, sometimes riveting secret life of mothers is the one revealed in these mother's largely unfiltered voices. And it's happening all around us.

The proliferation of shared experience as seen in these blogs is a powerful way to unite women who might not otherwise feel as though they had anything in common. These are the invisible mothers becoming visible before our eyes, these are the silenced voices slowly beginning to articulate what their literary grandmothers and great-great-grandmothers gave voice to in texts from 30 years ago (Erma Bombeck) to 150 years ago (Fanny Fern). These are real mothers turning to literature – endeavoring to create literature – to make sense of the secret world they have discovered, where it turns out, in fact, that we can't have it all and do it all, and that the walls we thought had been knocked down prove to be strikingly resistant when we – suddenly, surprisingly – bang our heads against them. These are real mothers struggling to create a narrative out of the often disjointed, complex, and simultaneously occurring events of their lives.

There are thousands of mother-bloggers writing today. Some of the writing I like best I've found at a handful of places. Dooce, who famously lost her job due to her blogging, took her thousands of readers with her on her journey through pregnancy, motherhood, and intense post-partum depression. MimiSmartypants, another blogger who blogged pre-motherhood, now often takes motherhood as her subject, writing about her adoptive daughter as well as other decidedly un-mom-like activities. She provides a refreshing representation of a mother who has not been subsumed by her undertaking of motherhood. One of the most well written and amazing discussions of motherhood can be found at ChezMiscarriage, where the anonymous author explores the fundamental identity of women and mothering from the perspective of a woman who is grappling with infertility. Dawn Friedman at ThisWomansWork has been blogging her experience with motherhood, secondary infertility, and open adoption, eloquently writing about subjects traditionally not discussed with such frankness. These are but a few examples of women creating maternal narratives through weblogs.

*

My mother-in-law cornered me a few months ago and told me she had done a Google search to look for the name of a paper my husband, Gil, had presented: "When I did this Google search, I found this…. I don't know what I found. It talked about Gil, about Emi – it was some kind of diary, like a journal or something, with all these very, VERY personal stories."

"You found my blog," I said.

"I don't know what I found."

"I'm telling you, you found my BLOG. It's short for 'weblog,' and you're right, it's kind of like a diary. I use it as a sketchpad for essays I'm considering writing, as a place to talk myself through ideas I'm grappling with, as a way to record the kinds of things that happen every day that I know I'm going to forget. And as a way for readers to kind of catch up and keep in touch with me."

"It's very personal," she said. "I kept reading and reading, because I was so worried you were going to write something about ME!"

I have, of course, though I didn't provide her with the archive link to prove it. She continued, "I read what you wrote about Emi going to summer camp and crying, and how she had to come home, and how worried you were about whether you were doing the right thing, and it just broke my heart. I just cried when I read it." Then suddenly she became almost accusatory. "How long have you been doing this? How can you write about such private things?"

She couldn't see it, but her own comments answered the primary question she raised: I write about such private things in a relatively public place because sharing my experience as a mother-in-process, as a mother continually learning and evaluating and questioning and contextualizing and theorizing and evolving, may touch someone. It may touch someone who is in a similar emotional place, or in similar circumstances, such as the readers who write me to tell me that what they read makes them feel less alone. Or it may touch someone like my mother-in-law, who is in a vastly different place, a mother with grown kids, a woman for whom feminism is a non-issue – in other words, a person with a completely different viewpoint. A person whom I could not reach on a personal, daily level and with whom I could never have the kind of discourse that she and I have now "virtually" had, thanks to her reading of my blog. It may force her to think beyond her own personal experience. It may force her to consider a world view she hadn't imagined. It may even move her to tears.

Blogs in their individuality – the way they are dominated by a single voice, the way they enforce a lack of community or consensus as they are focused on the experience of one person – might seem to undermine the work of creating a unified experience of feminism. But in fact, in allowing marginalized voices to have a presence, to be heard – or, in this case, read – I believe they function in the exact opposite way. Mothers who go online are finding a multiplicity of viewpoints, a real and humanized investigation of the complex and varied ways in which we mother, and mothers who recognize themselves in the writings of these mother-bloggers feel valid. They feel heard. And they feel empowered.

They know, as readers powerfully and humblingly write to tell me, that they are not alone. That despite what divides us – whether we co-parent or single-parent, whether our children are grown or just being born, whether we micro-manage or mis-manage – we are here, doing the daily work of mothering, together.

The power of blogging to transform, to reach someone with a dramatically opposing point of view and to actually begin to enact a change, was brought home to me recently when I received an e-mail from a reader. I had transcribed in my blog a talk I gave at a local mother's group, a branch of a national mothers' organization. In the talk, I spoke about compassion. I began by saying that being a mother was a little bit like being a magician: everything is supposed to look effortless, all due to the magician's competent, confident expertise -- and of course, no one is ever supposed to know how the tricks are done. I continued on to say that talking about the complexities of motherhood was a little like breaking that magician's code of silence. And yet, if we don't talk about how we cope from day to day, then we never see how we can learn from each other, we never see beyond our apparent differences, we never see that we are not alone. At the end of the talk, I shared a story from a friend of mine who told me about her trip to Kathmandu, and how she was so disappointed when the few Americans she met up with ended up squabbling over who was the most conscientious traveler – who spent less on a hotel, who used the least resources. She said, "Here we are, on the other side of the world together! And this is what we're talking about?" To me, that was the perfect metaphor for motherhood and the ways in which we divide ourselves. Here we are, on the other side of the world. Shouldn't we be compassionate? Shouldn't we be working together?

A reader wrote to me to tell me that until she read that particular blog entry, she couldn't understand why a friend had been angry with her for bashing a fellow mother. The reader said she had made a comment at a playgroup about a "bad mother" that they both knew, and even made up an exaggerated story about this bad mother to underscore her point. She told me her friend had stopped speaking to her, and that she really hadn't understood why, why it was a big deal to vilify this bad mom. But reading the transcript of my talk, she said, made a lightbulb go off in her head. She had a moment where she was able to realize that her judgments came from a place of insecurity about her own ability as a mother, and that pointing the finger at this supposed bad mom was merely a way to make herself feel better. And she also realized that instead of making herself feel better, all it did was divide her – from her friend, and from her mothers' group.

This might not seem like much. But to me, it was incredible. It was one of those rare but powerful instances where a mother sharing a story from her own personal narrative was able to make another mother aware of what we are all talking about when we talk about motherhood and feminism – the ways in which we are divided, the ways in which our culture works to insulate us from those who make different choices, the ways in which we can reach across those divides to work towards a common goal.

I believe that mothers sharing their personal stories – either through traditional print publishing or through the immediacy of a blog – are doing the work of feminism by the sheer fact of making their experiences known to other mothers who are able to access their texts. They are, whether they intend to or not, entering into a conversation with women who might be threatened by real-life discussion, with some women who are like-minded, and with other women who could not be more different.

I can't change the world on my own. Some days I can barely change the baby's diaper on my own. But knowing that out there, in cyberspace, in the spate of books being written, are mothers ready even to whisper the secrets of our contemporary lives, I feel empowered. I feel optimistic. And I feel strong.

Comments

[jozef Imrich]

Another strong essay ...

BTW, in Australia there is a blog which attracts many mothers (and fathers) and it is appropriately labelled She Sells Sanctuary. Gianna is a brilliant writer

http://she-sells-sanctuary.blogspot.com/

[Soniah Kamal]

I am a writer and a mother, or is a mother and a writer. I never know which one to define myself as first..but definition is of utmost importance: it is our identity.
Just yesterday I told my husband, after a friend got her PhD: if it wasn't for the kids I'd surely be a Doctpr of Letters too.
A few days before that I'd told him: they are my greatest achievments, are these kids.
He's confused. And rightly so for so am I.
Rearing kids seems harder in the States. I've grown up in Paksitan where amongst the maids, the cook, the chauffer, and the family I had all the time in the world. In the US I cannot afford this lifestyle, and so I find myself wondering about having kids...about what I'm giving up...and also about what I'm gaining...being with the kids 24 hours a day all day every day....I hope twenty years down this line this indeed will be a gain.
That some publishing industry has decided that Moms don't read, can't read, won't read, is insane...I was able to nurse each of my two for ten months solely because I leanred to read while doing so. So that's my picture of a mother/writer/reader: A baby suckling on one side, a book propped up on the other.

[Ann D]

Thanks for posting your essay, Andi.

I love reading first-person accounts of every stage of motherhood. I'm glad that some publishers have decided to publish "momoirs" even if some of the bigger houses are convinced that there's no market for these types of books (something that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, given how much every mom I know loves these types of books).

[mjones]

Wonderful!

And here's looking forward to a world where "momoirs" get folded back into "memoirs" -- "an account of the author's personal experiences" -- where they belong.

[jozef Imrich]

It is me again ... I just could not help myself but to provide this link:

Mother is the most beautiful word in the English language, followed by passion, smile, love and eternity (Father didn't make the list at all.)

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/11/25/1101219649663.html?from=top5

[Mychelline]

I found your blog through Alas, A Blog. I like it, I'll come back.

I'm not a mother, nor do I blog, but I read the blogs of several parents I do not know IRL (2 moms, 1 dad) on a regular basis. I chose the mothers' blogs because of their whole personalities, not because they are moms. The dad has a new baby and is being very hands-on, and that's very different than my dad was. Plus, I like babies, and they post pictures sometimes. :)

You're right, these blogs give me a fresh perspective on an experience I will never have. Self-growth is my highest value, so I'm committed to broadening my horizons, even when I find myself out of my comfort zone.

[The Happy Housewife]

You have addressed so many of the concerns that us "bloggin' mums" keep stumbling upon. As a freelance writer and mother of four, I find blogging cheaper than therapy. I also find a female solidarity, a maternal camaraderie in cyberspace that just doesn't exist in my real world. I will direct my readers to your essay.

'We' - and by that I mean Mothers - have to stop perpetuating the myth that Good Mothering has to be done a Certain Way. It is just another big stick for women to beat themselves with. I agree wholeheartedly that we are the cyber-feminists, and the voice of Motherhood is loud and strong across the internet!

[Liz]

Words that I'm taking to heart --- being the mom of a 2 month old and a writer --- once he was born, the book I was working on about a jewel thief suddenly seemed very, very insignificant. And yet writing about the bewildering experience of becoming a mom seems daunting, to say the least. And trite. Thanks for the essay!

[Shelley Abreu]

Blogs like Andrea Buchanan's "mothershock" and "dotmoms" convinced me to start my own blog about losing my father and becoming a mother (http://pitsandtrees.typepad.com). After writing in the corporate world for many years, it was the experience of motherhood that inspired me to write about things that really matter to me. Blogging makes the writing feel important.

Great essay!

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