On Mommyblogging: Notes to a Future Feminist Historian

When they look back, what will they think about mothers? Who were we, what did we do and how did we feel about our mothering? In the mamasphere we see the creation of maternal history, a history both intimate and at arm's length; a history more variegated than any chronicling of motherhood that has come before, yet nonetheless limited; mommyblogs which are diverse, but never diverse enough. The picture of mothering that emerges from our writing is simultaneously authentic and constructed, raw and sanitized. When they look back, they will see, through mommyblogs, a history of mothers at this moment in time, notable as much for their omissions as their inclusions, enacting both resistance and a submission to the dominant discourses of motherhood.