Blogging In Online Diaries & Podcasts Give Parents A Voice And Instant Feedback by marguerite paolino Ashland moms and neighbors Erin Kane and Kristin Brandt podcast on Thursday evenings. The duo co-founded www.manicmommies.com A personal journal doesn't have to stay hidden in a drawer or under a mattress anymore. Many of today's moms post their innermost thoughts about family life on the Internet for anyone to find. And the people who read these "mom blogs" aren't shy about letting writers know what they think. "I always wrote journals in notebooks," said Kris, a north-of-Boston mom of three who writes a blog called Wonder Mom (www.wondermom.blogspot.com). "I thought I would never have mine out there on the Web, but it's comforting to have other moms chime in and say they know what you're going through. That's what keeps me going," she said. Blogging is fast becoming the newest way for mothers to write a parenting journal, create an online baby book, establish connections with other parents, form an advice network, or generally express their thoughts. Readers reply with their own questions, comments, and advice instant feedback for the blogger. "Probably the thing that has been most surprising to me is the extent to which blogging creates a conversation with others," said the Phantom Scribbler (www.phantomscribbler. blogspot.com), a Boston-area blogger, with two children. When she posts an entry, she receives feedback from people posting directly to her site. Some of those will provide links to or post on their own sites, where the conversation will continue with different readers adding their voices to the mix. "I have found that I really enjoy taking part in a conversation with so many articulate people." According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 25 percent of women who go online visit blogs and 8 percent create them. Yet, firm numbers on mommy bloggers are hard to define, since there is no single registry or central directory. Directories like the Mom Salon (www.themomsalon.com) make it easier to find people blogging on particular topics. The Mom Salon lists 40 different categories for its 200 mom blogs and has more mom blogs from Massachusetts than from any other state. There are 481 mom bloggers listed on www.blogwise.com, although not all are U.S.-based. An alternative to the directories is visiting a few sites that seem interesting and investigating the bloggers' web rolls. Individual bloggers include lists, web rolls, with links to dozens of other sites they like, making it easy to leap endlessly from one mom blog to another. Instant connections Kris started Wonder Mom in the summer of 2004 after she had a miscarriage, lost a steady freelance writing gig, and was busy caring for her two young children at home. After reading a friend's blog for a while, Kris took the plunge herself. It wasn't hard to get started. "I went over to Blogger and click, click, click, I had a blog," she said. Blogger, Typepad, WordPress and other sites have templates that allow a user to set up a blog nearly instantly. Kris, whose children are now ages 6, 4, and 9 months, finds time to post new Wonder Mom entries three or four times a week and is one of about 40 regular writers on Dot Moms (www.roughdraft.typepad.com/dotmoms ). "For a lot of moms, blogging is a form of expression and a way to meet other people," she said. But as a writer, Kris's take is a little different. "If something makes me write more, it's a good thing." She describes the reader feedback as "addictive," especially because traditionally "as a writer, you send [your writing] out there and that's it." But blogging makes it easy for readers to comment and easy for the blogger to track the number of visitors to the site. "If somebody leaves a comment and says I'm an amazing writer, it makes my day," she said. Not everyone who has a blog is a professional writer. Mrs. Chicky (www.chickychickybaby. blogspot.com), who lives in Central Massachusetts, considers herself more of a diarist. She's mostly at home with her 1-year-old daughter, and she works a few hours a week. "I'm very conversational, often throwing proper grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure out the window in favor of familiarity," she said. "If you read my blog, I want you to feel as if I am talking to you, not writing you a formal letter." She thinks a lot of mom and dad blogs are authored by "people who were feeling overwhelmed by their new or ever-changing roles as parents and needed an outlet to express those feelings," she said. "It's a way to reach out to others who, like many of us, don't want to be pigeon-holed as just a mom or a dad, but as a viable individual with many interests and ideas, who just happen to have kids." One 29-year-old Newton woman, a stay-athome mom with an MBA and a 14-month-old daughter, has used her blog, Diary of a Reluctant Housewife (www.diary.blogs.com), to establish a sense of community different from the one she has with her network of pre-baby friends and playgroups. "What is most interesting is when people share their lives when they have nothing to gain by it," she said. "It's a good way to get a different perspective than the one you get from the people you meet in real life." But Reluctant wonders how likely it is that she and an e-mail correspondent from Mississippi would have become friends if they met in person or if they would have even struck up a conversation in the grocery store. "I hate to say it but it probably wouldn't happen," she said. "Your friends tend to look like you, live in the same kinds of neighborhoods. You're in the same socio-economic group." Taking time to blog While blogging has attracted many moms who enjoy the connection they build with others, it's a pursuit that can mean a lot of time in front of the computer. "I spend way too much time on my blog," said Mrs. Chicky. She tries to post daily during the week and saves weekends for her family. "Writing a daily blog is a lesson in time management." Time is an issue that Erin Kane and Kristin Brandt, cofounders of www.manicmommies. com, struggle with, too-note the word manic in their blog title. The Ashland neighbors started blogging three years ago, even though each has a job, a husband, and two children also vying for time. Kane, a freelance publicist, and Brandt, who works at a Natick advertising agency, began by posting every other day and doing a podcast once a month. But their increasinglypopular podcast an Internet-based audio show downloaded to a computer, iPod, or MP3 player has become the place they want to funnel their limited time. On Thursday evenings, they choose a topic, hang out in Brandt's living room, and record their discussion. They do little editing. Kane says having a partner changes the dynamic of both the podcast and the blog. "It's nice to have a fresh voice," Kane said. On the blog, they comment on one another's posts. On the podcast, the conversation is lively, informative, and enjoyable. Kane has found both to be personally rewarding. When she mentioned on one of the podcasts that her son Tommy hates taking medicine, Kane found an e-mail in her inbox the next day: a woman described the many ways she had tried getting the muchneeded but very unwanted medicines into her son with leukemia. Kane passed a list of the woman's tips on to the readers of Manic Mommies. "That is the best motivation," Kane said. "People are hungry for that kind of information and bonding with other moms. Moms crave a sense of community and the ability to reach out and talk. Blogging is a really supportive universe." Marguerite Paolino is a Massachusetts-based freelance writer.