Mother's Day 2023
I have been writing for as long as I can remember. I have been writing and publishing on the internet since 1999. That’s when I started sharing my thoughts on a brand new platform called LiveJournal. I was a “blogger.” It was fun and weird and novel… all in equal measure.
My blog was followed by a few friends, and a handful of military readers. Over time, the military readership would grow. The military audience would eventually get big enough that, when I deployed to Iraq, I was asked by my command to stop. In the end, I kept blogging, but agreed to not write about anything directly related to the war.
One of the things that I daydreamed about was getting famous. I wanted to turn blogging into a full-time job. I wanted tens of thousands - maybe even hundreds of thousands - of fans who eagerly devoured every post. And there were examples of this kind of success that were becoming visible. And none seemed to get there faster than a few writers who pioneered what came to be called "mom blogs."
These "mommy bloggers" were huge in the early days of the internet, before Facebook or Twitter or Instagram. They were the original influencers. Bloggers like Glennon Doyle, Melinda Roberts, and Catherine Connors helped open new conversations about what it meant to be a mom in the new century.
None was more successful, or influential, than Heather Armstrong and dooce.com. Heather talked about things that no one talked about at the time. She was honest - at times brutally so - about the trials of being a mom, the unrealistic expectations, the struggle that comes with having young kids and managing family life. She talked about poop and spit-up. She talked about the strain kids placed on a marriage. She talked about postpartum depression.
Heather found tremendous success. She appeared on Oprah. She wrote best-selling books. She had over 300,000 daily readers at the height of her success, and over a million visitors a year to her website.
Heather found other things, too. She found that her depression wasn't just postpartum. It would be a long term, ongoing challenge. She found that the pressures of leading a VERY visible life, mental illness, and success (and yes, success creates stress) put a strain on her marriage that could not be alleviated. When she and her husband announced their split, there was an extraordinary amount of blowback. Tens of thousands of people had established a par asocial relationship with Heather, and viewed her life and family as perfect. Her separation ruptured that image for many, and some left horrible and spiteful comments on her blog, calling her every name imaginable.
Heather scaled back her blogging. She stayed online though, and would eventually pivot to Instagram. She wrote a couple more books. They didn't sell as well. Her depression got worse. She drank to help numb her pain. It became a problem. Heather eventually remarried and got sober. That was great, but her depression remained.
Earlier this week Heather Armstrong lost her battle with depression. She was 47.
At some point along my journey, I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do the kind of work that it takes to be a famous blogger. Or Substacker now I guess. You have to build an audience. You have to constantly shill for shares and likes and subscribers. And I won't do that.
Balancing being open about the hardest parts of your life and your personal mental health can be extraordinarily challenging. It is hard to get the right mix. And it is even harder for moms who write about being moms.
One of the things that I love about being a dad is that the bar I have to clear to be considered a "good" dad is ludicrously low. If I keep the kids alive on a trip to the park, people will oooh and aaah. "What a great dad!" Why? Cause I pushed my kid on a swing? I made dinner without burning anything? I used detergent instead of bleach for the laundry?
Hell, if I just do laundry I am considered a GREAT dad.
The expectations we have for moms are completely different. Moms are expected to cook like Julia Child, design like Joanna Gaines, maintain a house like Martha Stewart, and do it all while looking Instagram perfect and fashion forward. The expectations are completely unreasonable, and the pressure that comes with it is untenable.
Heather Armstrong felt that pressure intensely. And, to be fair, she also helped create that pressure. One of the great ironies of the mommy blog moment was that in revealing the challenges and imperfections of being a mom, these writers also created new expectations around openness and sharing and living your life online.
What started out as honesty would eventually become a hashtag.
Mother's Day is a celebration of motherhood. And motherhood is something worth celebrating. And it is also complicated.
Being a parent is about joy and pain, sunshine and clouds. It is about skinned knees and failed tests. About heartbreak and simple joys. It is about quiet moments and screaming matches. It is about a constant, dull, aching fear. Am I doing the right thing for this child? Am I setting the right boundaries? Am I enough?
For moms, all of that is multiplied by social expectations, peer pressure, and insecurity.
It's the hardest goddamn job in the world.
My mom was not good at the job. At all. She never should have taken it on in the first place probably. She was a much better grandmother.
My wife is amazing at the job. She has done things that astound me. SHE should have been the one blogging the whole time. It would been a hell of a lot more interesting probably.
My daughter is a good mother. And she is learning more every day. She is smart. She loves her son more than anything in the world. She will only get better.
I am grateful for all the moms. ALL of them. Cause let's be real, if you are mom then at some point you have struggled. And you kept going. Through it all.
There is a lot that is beautiful about motherhood. And fighting through the challenges may be the most beautiful of all.
If there is one thing moms know to do, it is to keep pounding the rock.
Happy Mother's Day, y'all.
Thanks for this. Kudos to Barb. And to you. Both my daughter and I are moms (she’s a better mom than I was), and this made both of us weepy.
Thanks for pushing kids on the swing. For doing laundry. For cooking dinner. And especially for writing. But most of all, thank you for keeping on with pounding that rock. Especially this week.