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Time Magazine and Feeling Like a Total Boob
Now that the dust has settled on the world's most discussed photo of a woman nursing in the history of time — and Time — let me stop and assess my own feelings.
OK, here goes.
I don't care whether you nurse or for how long. I don't care …Read more.
Some Unusual but Excellent Mom Advice
Finally, I'm going to say some nice stuff about my mom. When a blogger friend was doing a round up of "best advice our moms ever gave us," I realized that my mom had some gems.
Now, I share them with you.
Maybe her bon mots were a bit …Read more.
Tanorexic Pales Next to Most Affectionate
The thing about the now infamous over-tanned mom accused of taking her toddler to a tanning salon is that she really hogs the bad-mom spotlight. I would call it "limelight," but in her case, it's more of an orange.
She got lots of ink this …Read more.
It's Not Pee Sea To Say This
The last place you want to find yourself is slumped down in the underpants section at Target clutching the last packet of Spider-Man big boy pants, head in hands, purse soaked in pee.
Among other things, you feel like the living embodiment of a …Read more.
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Why I Wish the Term 'Mommy Blogger' Had Never Been BornBack when I was single, and a columnist, I was regularly referred to as a "singles columnist." That seems fair enough, looking back. Yet, I resented it so thoroughly that the phrase made me queasy. Singles columnist. No matter what I wrote about — my family, my car, my group of spinster girlfriends, my crappy apartment, my transsexual neighbor, my pets, rashes, philosophical questions — I would be reduced to the girl who writes about dates. Now, a far worse phrase has come into being, and it's been attached to me. Let me take a moment to point out that I realize this is a major First World problem. Still, humor me while I bemoan it. Mommy blogger. It's the worst, right? Let's break it down. "Mommy" itself is just plain reductive and even pejorative. Oh, you write about being a mommy, isn't that adorable? Do you use Helvetica, Times New Roman or just embroider it directly onto a pillowcase? Is a Pulitzer Prize winner, for example, who happens to sometimes write online about her experiences as a parent, for lack of a more dignified term, a "mommy blogger"? She is, I think. I have no Pulitzer (but it was kind of fun hinting I did). However, just to make my point, I've been writing professionally since I was 19 (obituaries back then, I guess I was first a "death columnist"). I have a fistful of far lesser writing awards, sure, but I'm no war correspondent, unless you count my extensive coverage of my own self-esteem battles. Still, when my topics revolved largely around dating, I had a simmering but righteous indignation about being called a singles columnist. I wondered: Do male first-person columnists get pigeonholed with mildly belittling labels? It seemed like men who took a thoughtful approach to writing about their experiences with love and dating were just called writers, essayists, columnists or whatever. That seemed respectable. I couldn't help but notice the difference. Now, about the "blogger" part. Anyone with WordPress and three thoughts to string together can be a blogger.
We're all thrown onto one slag-heap of "mommy bloggers," with nothing to separate those of us who have always been writers and then had a kid and then decided to write about that from those of us who post a fuzzy picture of our positive pregnancy test stick and 9,000 words on layette designs and nursery decals. Mommy blogger. The first day I had a child, it seemed glorious beyond description to hear myself called "mother." The first time I saw my name in a newspaper, I felt lucky beyond words to be a writer, a real writer. Man, I do not want to be called a mommy blogger. Maybe that's nothing but snobbery and stupidity, but if there's a conference with that term, count me out. If I'm voted one of the funniest, I'm flattered, but I'm also panicked. Is that what it has come to now? Is it irrational to make so much of a term? It's just that mommy blogging seems like a fad that will pass, more of a purple-haired troll doll than a Scarlet Letter. More to the point, this is what I did long before I was a mommy. I was a writer, about dead people, about dates, about dates that were deadly. Sure, I've lost some things as a mom — free time, much of the elasticity in some of my skin, my ability to read long novels or take long baths. But I can't toss my 20-year career into the Diaper Genie of festering refuse that is largely what is found online. Look, we all need to feel special, and maybe it's harder now. Maybe I have to work harder. So thanks for reading this. I don't feel superior. I really don't. I mean, I don't like the word "moist," either, so maybe I get stuck on words. Teresa Strasser is an Emmy-winning television writer, a two-time Los Angeles Press Club Columnist of the Year and a multimedia personality. She is the author of a new book, "Exploiting My Baby," the rights to which have been optioned by Sony Pictures. To find out more about Teresa Strasser and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com. COPYRIGHT 2012 CREATORS.COM
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