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Guest post: "The internet makes me a better mum"

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MumsnetGuestPosts · 12/10/2015 14:11

It was the mental fatigue of motherhood that took me by surprise.

I'd become a stay-at-home mum by accident and, while I loved it, I found it exhausting. It was obviously physically hard work - but that was only part of what was making me so tired.

I was tired of trying to wade my way through all the advice that seemed to be out there. Whenever I listened to the news or picked up a magazine, there were so many people making so much noise about how their survey proved that I had parenting all wrong.

And then something snapped and I decided that enough was enough. I resolved to work out for myself how I could be a good mum, and for some reason that I still don't entirely understand, I decided to write about it online.

That was just over two years ago, at a time when I'd not heard of 'mummy blogging' or Blogfest or blogging networks. My evenings generally comprised of me collapsing in front of the TV, too weary to do much else after a day of parenting our three very young children.

I wasn't sure what blogging was, other than that a friend did it and her writing made me chuckle. I headed to the computer, did a little Googling, and before the night was through I had written my first post. It was rubbish. But I published it regardless and I felt all the better for it.

Blogging was immersive, fulfilling, and incredibly good for my mental wellbeing. It made me happy, it gave me an outlet for dabbling in a long-lost love of writing creatively, and it did give me that space to work out how to be the parent I wanted to be. I was hooked, and I was a more confident parent to boot. What could be wrong with that?

I slowly began to connect with more people online, my blog started to show up in more searches, now and again a post would be shared. I felt part of an online community of parents, we were finding our way, talking about what worked and what didn't, exploring our experiences, and carving a place for ourselves online. But then, the worry set in.

When I started writing, the point of the blog was to help me decipher how to be a good mum. But how could using my family's personal life to generate content for a public blog ever be considered good for my children? My kids never asked for any public exposure and were too young to give their consent for me to publish what I wrote. Was I somehow breaching their trust?

I wasn't only sharing our stories on my blog. They were published and shared on social media, their reach went way beyond what I could control. A status update on Facebook, or a tweet about family life could be shared and reshared without my control.

By trying to be the best mum I could be, it seemed I had inadvertently become the worst mum ever.

Still, there was this certainty that writing, and writing in public, did me no end of good. My desire to write for an audience and my desire to be a selfless parent did certainly create tension, but it was a tension I determined to manage. Before writing about our life online, I'd missed having a creative outlet. Now, I'd found it again.

I decided that the rules we apply to real life could surely be applied equally to blogging life: be kind; be thoughtful; treat others as you'd care to be treated.

I still had worries though. Would I become one of those experts adding to the white noise of opinion that tells parents they've got it all wrong?

It finally dawned on me that the virtual world is not an optional extra to the real world. Social media is as much a part of the real world as cars and sex and beer and all of those amazing things that terrify you with your parenting hat on. It is here. We need to learn to deal with it.

Through the blog, I am dealing with it. I have embraced it, and by doing this I have learned how to balance the necessary tensions, how to tread with caution, how to enjoy it and how make my online space work for me and my family.

I still have so much to learn – it's not just that two years ago I didn't understand blogging, it's that twenty years ago I'd not heard of the internet – but I'm getting there and I'm ready now to support my kids when they make their own way in this very real part of everyday life.

Will my kids agree that my escapades on social media make me a better mum? Only time will tell. Time and perhaps the private tales that they decide to share in public when they themselves are old enough to do so.

OP posts:
YellowOfficeBlock · 14/10/2015 19:59

Sorry but I flipping hate "mummy blogs"
We all have tales to tell about our kids, about being a parent etc, but honestly I don't want to read about it, especially if its "witty" or "amusing"
Blogs are ok if they're about something specific, cooking or fashion or a travel journey. It can be a great way of keeping in touch with friends and family and keeping them updated of your adventures etc

But I can bear the ones that just talk about the difficulties of getting kids round the supermarket or other such pointless twee nonsense.

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