Friday, February 22, 2013

Who cares if it's a choice?

Nah, this post is probably not what you thought it was from the title, it's not about sexuality, it's about being a single mom - by choice.

Yup, I posted about this a recently here On being a single mom who was raised by a single mom but also even more recently I was nominated for The Circle of Mom's Top 25 Single Mom blogs.

There are some amazing blogs on that list and if you have time, I suggest you read a few of them. But how to choose? Well you could just start at the top and go through them until you run out of time, or you could do what many will do and read the mini-bios and find the ones that "speaks" to you the most.

There are blogs by mommies, who like me, went at it alone from the start. There are blogs in the list of those who 'ooops' got pregnant by accident and decided to raise the child without a father. There are quite a few blogs from divorced moms. There are single moms who talk about parenting as a teen, in their 20s, 30s and 40s (and watch out, my next big birthday in a few years moves into the 50s). And then there are the blogs who's focus is on the kids, not why/how the mom became single. These include blogs with kids aged from newborn to teens and early adults. There are blogs by single moms focused on raising special needs kids. If it exists, it's probably there.

So yeah, if you have time, read them all. But if you don't have time, if you're stressed and looking for a laugh or support from someone in a situation similar to yours, then it's nice to pick a blog that matches that without weeding through all of them. That is why I include 'by choice' in my description. It's not to make me sound like I'm better (or worse since really, doing this on my own meant I didn't find love, even temporary love). So if someone is in the middle of bitter divorce and wants to read about someone else's divorce journey, they are not going to find what they want in my blog. But hey, there are a few in this list that would certainly fit that bill. If someone is alone and thinking this means they can never had kids, well, then my blog is a perfect choice for them. As it also started out as an 'infertility' blog, there is information and hope there too (one of my top 5 posts is about 8dp5dt) .

Over the last couple weeks, I have read at least one post from each of the blogs. I've discovered a few that I will follow regularly now. They are not necessarily by those who became a parent in the same way I did, but those who's general day to day parenting, work, home life overlaps enough with mine that from their writing, I think if we knew each other IRL, we'd be friends.  And that is what it's all about, this blog community,  friendships, support, advice, information and fun.

Why this post? Well of course I'd like some more votes at And Mommy Makes 3 but also in reading some of the other nominees, I saw some, well, not quite attacks but some negative innuendos about some of the other blogs, not while directed at any specific blog they were negative about the contents and descriptive words (by choice was brought up directly). So I will point back to this post Results Not Typical and remind that it is possible to promote yourself with slamming anyone else. Just because you don't share traits with someone, there is no reason to belittle or shame them.

And now my favorite photo of the week - the roaring lion with his less than impressed giraffe friend

4 comments:

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Unknown said...

<3

you're an awesome person and your boys are too. So cute that photo!

I never did understand why people take the time to belittle and take down other people, especially in areas like this where people are trying to share their experiences to help others - long story short I really do agree with you on that point. I may not post often but I like to read about what's going on :)

the_happy_hausfrau said...

Christine I feel crappy about the way I spoke of the "by choice" mommies. It wasn't my intention to be a snarky mean girl but reading it after the fact made me realize that's exactly how it came across. I'm sorry.

Jenny

Unknown said...

Jenny - I know it wasn't intentional. And you weren't the only one who wrote in their blog about it (and at least one was very snide and rude towards everyone except herself) It was pointed out to me by a few people who got all up in arms about it. But meh, hence the post where I made sure not to name anyone. Water off the back. We're all in this together one way or another.
We're coming up on (another) election here locally and I already see candidates spend all their time and money talking about how bad the other person is without spending any time telling us who they are and what they can do. Obviously that wasn't the case with this since all the blogs had so much more information than a single post about the contest, but in some (not yours) it drew a parallel.
Like I said, I found some great new blogs in this event and hope to keep up on how things are going with different people.

Chris