by Louise Crawford
Having a kid changes everything. Sure, people have been doing it for
eons, but when it happens to you, it’s like it’s happening for the very
first time.
And when it happens to you — and you live in Brooklyn — everybody needs to hear about it.
Most new parents are content to capture every moment of junior’s life
on film or video. But in Brooklyn, there are almost as many writers as
there are Bugaboos — and book contracts don’t grow on trees—so many
moms are discussing their children, marriages and lives on their own
blogs.
With hundreds of mommy Web logs in Brooklyn alone, you
have to wonder how healthy it is for parents to tell-all on the
Internet. How will it be for the kids when they discover that mom’s
been sharing their secrets with the world?
But then again, given that we live in a media-driven world, they probably won’t care.
“That’s
where we are right now with everything,” observed Judy Antell, an
editor at Brooklyn Parent. “The whole celebrity culture we have now,
where you know everything about everyone, has moved on to parents.”
Mary
MacRae Warren is a single mother who lives with her 9-year-old son in a
cluttered East New York apartment from which she has run the blog,
“Mrs. Cleavage’s Diary,” since January. A self-described smarty-pants,
the saucy and opinionated former Park Sloper Warren uses the blog as a
creative outlet, as well as a way to deal with the highs and lows of
parenting.
Like many bloggers, Warren likes to live her life out
loud. “My family was always appalled at how open I was about
everything,” said Warren. “My parents argued all the time and I was the
blabbermouth who told the whole neighborhood.”
She still loves to have an audience. And telling stories is a way to get in touch with how she is feeling.
“In
a way, the blog is a homage to my mom,” Warren said this week over
coffee in Park Slope. “It’s a way to sort out what it means to be a
parent.”
Warren, a tall, busty blonde with a penchant for
colorful clothes and bright red lipstick, grew up in North Carolina
with a mother who stayed at home. “She was an artist and a really
creative person, but she was stifled by her kids.”
Still, she
managed to be quite a multi-tasker. “She gardened, she cooked, she
painted, she made cupcakes,” Warren recalled. “It was like I had June
Cleaver to live up to, which is a high standard to meet as a parent.”
After
her divorce in 2005, Warren started her blog as a way to kick and
scream about her life as a sole breadwinner and parent — a far cry from
the model she grew up with.
“I don’t pretend to be super mommy,”
she said. “I let it all hang out: the good, the bad and the ugly. There
are some nice moments with my son and some really crappy ones, too.”
Another
Brooklyn blogger, Sophia Romero, is the author of the critically
acclaimed novel, “Always Hiding,” about a family of illegal immigrants
from the Philippines. On her blog, “the Shiksa From Manila,” Romero has
created an online persona who explores the inter-faith, inter-ethnic
identity of her family, and does so with humor and verve.
Not all
blogs, however, are light-hearted, some deal with challenging aspects
of parenting. For example, Special Focus, a blog written anonymously by
a Brooklyn mom, chronicles the life of the writer, her twelve-year-old
daughter who has Asperger’s Syndrome and ADHD and her son who has
central auditory processing difficulties and, like his sister,
distraction and focus issues. Special Focus takes the reader on a
journey through the maze of special education and medication, as well
as the ups and downs of family life with special needs children.
“As
with most kids with special needs, my child’s constellation of
idiosyncrasies fall sloppily inside and outside of all the boxes of
possible diagnoses,” she wrote.
And it’s not just moms turning to their keyboard for a little relief.
The
Blog Fathers, a group site of some of the best dad bloggers around,
including Laid Off Dad, Adventure Dad, Because I’m Your Father and Mr.
Nice Guy, provides a compelling, funny and uncensored look into life as
a modern dad.
Brooklyn’s Mr. Nice Guy has been blogging since he
found out that his wife was having morning sickness and, even though
now his daughter is nearly three, he’s still going. His funny, snarky
posts cover everything from kiddie bathroom habits to caregivers, the
Brooklyn Target and beyond.
With interest in blogging, and the
popularity of “mom lit” books, on the rise, Families First, a
parent-run, non-profit organization in Carroll Gardens has started
offering a class called “Memoirs for Moms.” Teaching local ladies how
to start writing their own stories of motherhood, instructor Mary
Harmon, helps mothers reach more deeply into “the day-to-day joys and
emotional turning points of motherhood,” according to the course
description.
Harmon’s writing exercises are designed to stimulate
self-discovery, helping students create a “meaningful” snapshot of
motherhood.
While meaningful sounds nice, it’s clear that plenty
of moms are finding their own meaning in blowing off steam for a
community of concurring readers.
Though sometimes it seems that
the blogging can go too far. As Mrs. Cleavage wrote on a recent post:
“I took the kids ice skating one afternoon and filled page after page
of my journal with my cramped scrawl. The children were blessedly
occupied, and I was also.”
She blogged about how she keeps a journal? If that isn’t meta, what is?
“Mrs. Cleavage’s Diary” can be found at www.nymetroparents.c….
“The Shiksa From Manila” can be found at www.shiksafrommanila. blogspot.com.
“Special Focus” can be found at www.specialfocusblog.blogspot.com.
“The Blog Fathers” can be found at www.theblogfathers.com.
“Memoirs
for Moms” is held at at Family First Brooklyn (250 Baltic St. between
Clinton and Court streets in Cobble Hill). For information call (718)
237-1862.
