Reply to Dooce /Heather Armstrong

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm 58, so about 10 years older than Dooce, and I remember reading her posts many years ago when my children were little.  What some of you young uns might not realize is what a pathbreaker she was when she started her blog.  In the mid-2000's, there was no tradition of women even talking publicly about how hard parenting can be, how it affects your identity and self esteem, your marriage.

No wine moms.  The term 'sanctimommy' hadn't been coined yet.  There was no word to describe the ways that some women managed to make you feel bad about yourself when they competed with you on the parenting front.

I got married at age 29 and came of age when those terrible articles were everywhere about infertility and 'if you aren't married by the time you are thirty you are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than to have a child.'  We were grateful that our husbands 'let us' work, and didn't dare ask for any sort of equal parenting.  My girlfriends and I used to joke about our 'stealth jobs' that we did while our kids were in school but never letting on to our kids' teachers that we actually had jobs.  We watched that trial on TV of the nanny who killed her charge and watched that scandal where the day care center was accused of conducting ritualized satanic abuse.

We were encouraged to believe that we could do it all and have it all.  Being a mom was referred to as 'the toughest job you'll ever love.'

In short, there was NOWHERE to go to find a voice like hers -- that said things like "some days I wonder if I've made a mistake.  it's scary being responsible for these little people, their psyches, etc." or 'I wonder who I am or if I'm ever going to find myself again.'  These are sentiments that some of you may have encountered routinely when you had little kids, but at the time Heather was writing, these things were not said.  And she said them.  and helped us all to feel less alone.  To be okay with our imperfections, with being imperfect, with being scared.

Her writing meant a lot to a lot of people of my generation.  She paved the way for a lot of what you see routinely today on Tik Tok and elsewhere -- the one upping mom (she's awful!), the wealthy lady who doesn't understand what your problem is, etc. Probably this site.  Anyway, I'll miss her. [/quote]

It would have been so much better if she simply wrote about it all more anonymously and left out photos of her girls and their names. She could have simply gone by Dooce and had an avatar or something. She did something useful and also incredibly destructive. She helped people feel less alone and also helped inspire more moms to exploit their children for fame and fortune.[/quote]

Hindsight is 20/20. I don't think there was intent to exploit her children.  I will say that some people are more vulnerable to the effects of social media and its audience. Some people should not be creating it or consuming it. Eg certain personality types, those with mental health issues.[/quote]

I agree with this and will expand that for those of us who fall into this category, who are very negatively impacted by social media, we had NO IDEA that would be the result of any of this back in the early 00s when we started blogging and posting. First off, it wasn't so public then -- the audience of people looking at these blogs or engaging with early-era social media was miniscule. It truly did feel like community. It was raw and honest but not public in the way the internet is now public. It was like going to a local meet up or joining a book club -- yes, you were putting yourself out there, but in a way that felt small and controlled.

People like Dooce learned in real time, along with everyone else, what the downsides were and what could happen if you "put yourself out there" on the internet. Her starting her blog in 2001 is not the same as someone aspiring to be an influencer in 2023.[/quote]

People expressed skepticism about putting your life online for strangers even in the early 00s.  Some people just chose to ignore that.  But that risk was always there and always discussed.[/quote]

People express skepticism about everything everyone does. Discerning between wise caution on the one hand and, on the other, people just talking shit about stuff they know nothing about is the eternal challenge of the Internet. [/quote]

It was pretty obvious even back then.  Just because people chose to ignore wise caution doesn't mean this wasn't all foreseeable.[/quote]

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