Annual Earnest Post

I've been blogging about a year now. Mostly making fun of motherhood, Mormons, cowboys, and incorporating top tips on parenting for your edification such as the Slap 'Em to Sleep™ strategy. Between this blog and my bloglet, I get my share of feedback from readers and hey, not all of it is positive.

Which is really a shocker.

I mean, who could dislike me? I post pictures of my beautiful child every day; I speak about the joys of being mom to a gifted child; and I wax lyrical about the great blessings that have been bestowed upon me and mine. I post about celebrity births and wish "J.Lo and Mark all the best" and I thank the Christian God out there for making me and mine more special and privileged and basically better than you and yours! In short, I am a blogger likely to top the mom-blog traffic charts.

Wait, I said this post would be earnest. So bear with me. I now officially remove my mantle of sarcasm and irony for exactly one post to explain who I am, what I believe, and why most mom-blogs are absolute drivel. I feel I must clarify my position from time to time, so as to make entirely plain to everyone who asks (all five of you) why I write the way I do. Some people think I'm mean and "hateful." They misunderstand me. Conversely, I am dismayed to learn that some of my own fans seem to think I encourage them to write mean, nasty, and downright un-entertaining/insubstantial attacks on those around them and people in general. I will address both of these prongs in the following:

I DO COUNT MY BLESSINGS
I just don't do it in public. I have a magnificent child and a magnificent husband. We have many magnificent moments in our lives. Having a child is the single most important and defining moment of my life. Yuck, those sentences are so cheesy. They may be true, people, but they are also very boring sentences. This is why you do not hear them more often. It is not my bag to brag about how swell my life is or how astonishingly perfect my child is. It is not my bag to post images of my exceptionally handsome husband and exceptionally gorgeous child. It is not my bag to talk about how lucky I am. To feel lucky; privileged; and occasionally, stupidly gloriously happy: these are private, personal sentiments and serve absolutely no purpose in other people's lives. So I keep the happy moments to myself. With the exception of those I find to be highly amusing and which I think might be enjoyable for others to read.

Plus, ahem, I am just someone who likes to dwell on the glass-half-empty experience. It's where I'm at my best. To be joyful in blogging makes me feel ill. Joyful bloggery, unless wildly hilariously clever, is utterly useless and entirely scary. You may have noticed I am writing less and less about Crabtot's tempestuous toddlerness of late and confessing to fewer lapses in martyred maternal good humor? It's because I'VE BEEN ENJOYING MYSELF more and more as her mother. And this makes it a heck of a lot harder to write about with any real substance or hook.

I DON'T WRITE WHATEVER POPS INTO MY HEAD
Some people have praised me for my "brutal" honesty or cited me as an example of nasty mom-bloggery. Tart, opinionated, barbed. This is how I see my most prickliest posts. I believe in the power of negative thinking but only because I believe there is much that is positive in expressing one's most down-in-the-gutter-humiliating experiences of parenthood, preferably if it is done with a big wodge of humor ladeled into the mix. I also believe in negative mombloggery as a way of dressing down the general mom-public when I think we most deserve it: I write occasional snarky things about baby showers and mulitmedia momming and suchlike because I believe there are people who really deserve to be taken down a notch. In short, I believe I am performing a public service.

Okay, so, not really.

Boy, being earnest really is so hard to sustain! Happy-religious-joyful-perky moms, HOW DO YOU DO IT?

Roit, back to the point. I say negative things and I mock moms and momming quite often. But I have a line. I do not, for example, write about the personal miseries in my life. I don't write nasty things EVER about my family and friends even if I feel or am experiencing nasty low points with the aforementioned. Why do I not post about those close to me? Because they are close to me. And every single word you say on the internet is forever cached. Every foul word, expletive, personal revelation, indiscretion, is there in perpetuity. I think about this quite a lot, peeps. As do all the bloggers I love. For some, the degree of privacy is far less stringent or Victorian than mine. Many mom-bloggers use their kids' names, photos, and record intimate details of life as mother and wife. I'm not saying you can't do this successfully or legitimately and decently, but I choose not to. I also choose not to write about my kid's bowel movements (poop! ha ha! How FUNNY!) or say things that might, later, cause her shame and anger. I realize that no matter what I write she will probably be embarrassed and annoyed by her mother's musings down the road...but I certainly do my best to respect the privacy of someone who has no say in what her mother chooses to record about her online.

I'm not perfect in my blogocratic oath. I am a momocrite. I once wrote about Crabtot having a wee in the flowerpot and using my cashmere sweater as toilet paper. But people, it was CASHMERE! Exceptional circumstances!! I have also had some low moments --Polish poolboy, anyone? Yes, occasionally I have felt it necessary to issue an apology. For not being funny enough.

MY LAST EARNEST WORD
You have to have rules. Self-imposed limitations. Some mom-bloggers don't and some of you in that grouping think I am one of you. I'm not. If you have nasty personal things to say about those you love, try keeping a diary. But please don't think I dig you if you're just plain mean-o! I dig you just as little as I dig those who write all their braggiest, cheesiest, most appallingly narcissistic smug-self moments into their public blogs.

Thus ends my annual earnest "What I Believe." I think we can all agree that it was not the most delightful. I think we can all agree that we do not wish to see this sort of thing again for another year. I think we can all agree that blogging, when intense, is sort of slightly creepy. I think we can all agree that when Flavor Flav says "Do you know what time it is?" we do not.

I have no idea what that meant either.

I look forward to a return to lightness and laughter! Oh, how we shall laugh together, my friends! But it will be a good week before I post again here. I am on the road tomorrow, heading north and west. There are plump posts ahead and they will be consist in a combination of marshmallows and anchovies; sweet and salty, fluffy and fishy. Meantime, get thee to the bloglet for Crabmusings if you want them next week. Because, you know, even if I am traveling or taking an extended crack-binge break or whatevs, the people at Cookie still expect me to post reg'lar and good. Wankers.

Meantime, thanks to Guy Kawasaki at Alltop, a fabu new non-robot-chosen aggregator thingy that lists the Crabby blog in its mix. I am finding some good sites in there, like Stuff White People Like and other such bloggish goodness. Check it out, ai-ight?

And ah yes. The comments, I know I may get some harsh ones. Blogging is fair game. Bring it on! [she says, running away terrified...]