They say that this the age of self-absorption, and there is perhaps no greater example of that than the proliferation of "mommyblogs", which are for the most part all exactly the same; women and their "beautiful" children and the trials and tribulations of being white, upper-middle class and having a lot of time to punish us with bad writing.
Good writing is about life, and while there are those who can illuminate for us the moments of beauty that come from the relationship of child and mother, it is a very rare thing. Good writing transcends our identities, in large part. Mommyblogs are all about the identity of the author.
This is really a large part of the essence of what blogs are about. There are those that are facing outward, at the world, usually speaking about politics or events, and those facing inward.
I must admit a bias against the inward facing blogs, and perhaps that is unfair, but for the most part they sound selfish and unashamed of that selfishness. It is one thing to be a self-centered person. It is another to have absolutely no shame about it.
Here is an example of one:
wendiwenI normally don't like to take on other bloggers, but when it comes to mommyblogs, I can't hold back. Read this sentence: "4. I know now that baking soda and baking powder are not the same! A lesson learned the hard way."
I don't know how anyone gets through life with at least trying to bake something ONCE...
here's some other links about this particularly annoying trend:
clubmom"Amy Corbett Storch is a freelance writer whose thoughts on motherhood and other disasters can be found at amalah.com. She lives in Washington, DC with her husband and her son, who just so happens to be the most delicious baby on the planet"
ouch...
this article describes an article that raised a stink. I only scanned through it so I can't summarize it for you, but apparently a lot of mommybloggers found it insulting.
I can tell you that a blog from a female perspective is probably not much different in my mind. Good writing is niether female, nor male, nor mom, or dad. It just is. The focus on the identity we are fascinated by in the 20th century has gotten a lot of bad writing published and left a lot of good writing out in the cold. We all recall hearing the song "It's hard out there for a pimp" at the Academy awards and many of us winced more than a little at how the rights of women and the rights of blacks could have such a collision. But that moment was important. When we pay attention to who we are, we forget that perhaps the greatest gift of a writer is to ask who THEY are. I don't pretend to have it, but I know it when I see it.