A while back, I joined a ring of women bloggers who write about about all kinds of stuff, but mostly about their crazy lives as mothers. They call themselves Crazy Hip Blog Mama’s. When they find out how un-hip I really I am, I hope they will have mercy on me and keep me around as the resident dork.
Anyway, we are doing a writing collaboration focused on what it means to be a CHBM. It wasn’t hard for me to come up with about 100 reasons, but I’ll spare you and just give you one. Probably the most imporant thing about being a CHBM to me is the sense of community and meeting place it provides for moms from all walks of life — a great big Starbucks drinking international coffee clatch.
When you are 46-year-old woman with a two-year-old, you don’t have a lot of peers. Although there are more and more of us older moms around these days, most of the mom’s that I see out and about with toddlers in tow are about half my age. I don’t say that for sympathy, it’s just a fact.
Being a CHBM has provided me with an extensive and growing list of peers. It doesn’t matter how old I am. It doesn’t matter whether my kid is in college or kindergarten or diapers, for whom I voted or where or if I go to church. It makes no difference what kind of car I drive or clothes I wear. No matter if I’m married, single or divorced, or where I live. All the superficial factors that in other circumstances draw birds of a feather to flock together are irrelevant here. Probably the only thing every CHBM has in common is the experience of trying to raise a decent kid in a crazy world and writing about it.
As I’ve read through the blogs, I find that CHBMs write for all kinds of different reasons. Some write to maintain a sense of self outside of their role as mother, some are seeking a creative outlet, some to keep up with family spread across the world, some to journal and others just to vent. I sense that everyone who has come to CHBM is like me in the sense that they are seeking to be part of a community and maybe even a part of something larger than themselves.
Before blogging came along, we only had access to the voices that made it past the publishing gatekeepers. Today, we have the privilege to be able to peek in on the lives of women from all around the world in all kinds of circumstances and hear their stories if they choose to share it. It’s nice to know that someone out there is listening to my story too. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one whose life is occasionally consumed with someone else’s poop. Everyone has a story to tell and needs to be heard. Even if it is only about poop.