"Obscene flowering of narcissism", forsooth!
Verbal diarrhoea is apparently not good for your comments box.
La la la la la
The One With All The Links To Other Self-Absorbed Parents Who Need Validation
Jungian synchronicity (thank you, riza - Carl Jung is indeed famous) strikes again!
No sooner do I put this* up do I see a link to a NYT article (thanks, Mel) on blogs that are "online shrine(s) to parental self-absorption", and all the ensuing brouhaha that has followed.
Wow. I didn’t know I was potentially causing massive damage to HRC’s psyche by letting my parental pride burst online in the form of lengthy treatises on her Pooping Rituals and other beloved quirks. And My God will she resent me when her Prom date Googles her 16 years down the line (the stalker!).
Yes, blogging is narcissistic in the extreme- I blog because I (who suffer from severe delusions) think I have something to say and I want people who know the url to this site to read what I have to say (and dare I hope, comment). Plus, being a completely self-absorbed blogger ( do I look like Jeff Ooi to you?) 99.9% of what I write will centre around what else but me, my life (dull though it is) and my experiences (even duller). So how can I avoid speaking about my baby when she is so much a part of my life? A part that I would really, really like to share with the ether?
Then again, I also blog because this is one of the places where I can retain some semblance of my self that is not a wife, that is not a mummy, that is not a daughter, that is not a corporate worker bee, that is not any other label that society wants to slap on me. This is where whatever self-expression I have has free range- where I have the option of being plain old sometimes opinionated, sometimes snarky, sometimes completely inarticulate Nads. This is where I let the Little People in my head out to play. If I didn’t have naddywoman.diaryland.com I’d be seen mumbling monologues to myself on the way to the office toilets. Is that wrong? Because according to the NYT (unless I’ve misread) a parent who blogs (and blogs about his or her child at that) is looking for some form of self-validation in being a parent and how dare parents seek validation when everyone knows that parents should be martyrs who put up, shut up and suck it.
Does Dooce (who is a God-dess of Mummy Cool if ever there was one) intentionally plan on Leta doing a cute thing everyday so that she can write about it on her blog? Heck, come to think of it, did she plan on getting dooced as well? Is she being selfish when she says that dooce.com helped save her life when she had PPD and was struggling with new-mummyhood? Is Leta going to desperately resent her when she reads all of Mummy’s thoughtfully written entries, including a loving letter to her, during that dark period? Somehow, I think not- especially when she finds out that a lot of women who have struggled through PPD have been encouraged by her Mommy’s writings.
To insinuate that a parent who blogs is in some way more self-absorbed than say, a prostitute who does the same, is I think, getting this whole blogging/parenting thing wrong. Parenting is tough, and yes, some degree of self-sacrifice will be necessary. Neither is it imprudent to think about the consequences of what you expose in this amprphous ground between the private and the public on your life and your loved ones. But parents are also humans (surprise, surprise!) who need encouragement (read: not validation). No amount of advice from Dr. Sears, Miriam Stoppard or the Baby Whisperer (hah!) will prepare you for the realisation that there is no ‘average baby’, that you are solely responsible for the happiness and well-being of this one tiny creature who holds your sleep pattern in the crook of her cute little finger, that there is no one right answer. I should know, I’m a Type A nerd-geek hybrid who believes (or used to believe) in the power of arming one’s self with prior reading and almost went off the deep PPD end when nothing that Miriam Stoppard said applied to my baby. Did I scream into a pillow in frustration? Yes. Did I shed irrational tears? Yes. I’m not proud to say that I once even screamed “WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” to a wailing HRC. But, do I absolutely know that I love her with every fibre of my being and would do anything, give anything to ensure her happiness? That nothing else in this world fills me with reverential joy and awe than the mere thought of her? YES.
So when I read that Dooce or finslippy have gone through the same thing and are able to write about their experiences with such wit, I know that there is light at the end of the sleep-deprivation tunnel (and I think we’ve reached it!), and my screams and tears don’t mean that I’m a horrible mother- it means I’m human. Is it wrong then to want to put a perspective on things by putting a humorous spin on all the challenges you face as a parent- from PPD (this is real, people) to nap struggles and sharing it with strangers on the InterWeb? Strangers who are able to see the humour in things along with you? Do any of Bill Cosby’s kids think that he loves them any less when he talks (very funnily) about wanting desperately for them to get out of the house and live their own lives? Do other kids whose parents laugh hysterically at his jokes, knowing that they too feel what he's saying think the same? If they did, would it not mean that there was something fundamentally wrong with his relationship with his kids for them to be so insecure, as opposed to something being fundamentally wrong about Bill Cosby's act?
Therein lies the crux you see, bloggers blog for many reasons- but to blame a blog, a mere representation of your life with your children (if you so wish to talk about your children) on any problems those children might have later on in life, is giving way too much credit to the power of blogging itself. And while your blog may get you a book deal, I honestly don’t think that Leta and any of her less-famous counterparts will be talking to their shrinks about how damaged they were that time their prom date Googled their names.
(For a more articulate version of my thoughts, please see here.)
*Name of blog withheld to protect the not-so-innocent
nads went at 18:10