Thursday 9 April 2009

Quick hit: Mummy-blogging booming in Oz

From Australian Associated Press, via Stuff:

She said the "mummy-blog" phenomenon is booming in Australia, following the lead of the pioneering US mummy blog, dooce.com, which attracts more than 4 million hits a month -- bigger than any magazine in the world.

The blog is the creation of a feisty ex-mormon named Heather B Armstrong, who was famously sacked for posting about her work on her blog.

Freedman says blogging offers mums an outlet for the "complicated, interesting, worthy work" that they do, as well as being a "big normaliser" for readers.

"Even though to some people that might seem really menial and trivial, it's a way for people to express themselves and talk about what's going on in their lives."

Click through for the whole thing.

The mummy posts here are sometimes the ones that attract big piles of comments, perhaps because they are easier to talk about than some of the harder stuff?

PS Would it be that hard for websites like Stuff to hotlink when they mention an online site in an article?

7 comments:

A Nonny Moose said...

I used to read Violent Acres for the longest time (fascinating reading if you can stomach V's attitude) and she was in a feud with dooce. Hell of a car crash to watch.

Joanna said...

I love Dooce, but more for her openness about her mental health than any mommying stuff as such, although she does give me hope that my fear of post-natal-depression doesn't mean that I won't be able to cope with having a baby if that time comes.

Azlemed said...

omg, i am part of a fad lol... i blog about whatever i feel like, but certainly not 6 times a day, although today i have posted a few times....

Julie said...

Joanna I was very very worried about PND too, and in denial for quite a long time as a result. Might write more about that some time, but just wanted to say many mothers (and some fathers) get it and get through it, even when they are pretty high risk like I was. In a way having had mental illness before prepared me well for dealing with it. (Although I suspect my partner might disagree if we were just talking about the first month!)

Anonymous said...

I have talked about mummy-blogs with some friends in the past, I don't have kids myself but when my friends were pregnant and were looking more at these sites they found them terrifying! Not only are these women raising a child/children and doing all sorts of amazing and stimulating things, they have the energy to blog about it as well. Talk about feelings of inadequacy.

katy

Brenda said...

I'd love to see a boom of "stay home daddy-blogs".

(is there a better term than "stay home" ?)

Anonymous said...

Brenda - the how to term parents who do/don't engage in paid employment question is a really tricky one and I'm not convinced I've come across a term that is accurate, inoffensive to both sets and isn't awkwardly multi-syllabic.

As a SAHM I relish the rare days I get to SAH ;-)