we give it too

I am a Catholic Mommy Blogger and most of my friends are either reading or writing Catholic Mommy Blogs, too.  So we had a great conversation about Julie Rodrigues’ article Give Beauty Slowly (and Mormon Mommy Blogs).

To begin, I want to mention a couple of the points made in the Salon article that Julie referenced.  The author, Emily Matchar, describes herself as “your standard-issue late-20-something childless overeducated atheist feminist” and she and her similar friends find themselves reading because, “Mormon blogs are an escapist fantasy, a way to imagine a sweeter, simpler life.”  They find that the beauty, joy, and loveliness revealed in the blogs are (perhaps against their wills) making them want to have kids and bake cupcakes.

The interesting (and sad?) part about both Marchar and Julie’s articles is that they never talked about the Catholic Mommy Blogs (CMB).  We do exist.  Kate and Danielle and Rachel all have cute pictures of their cute kids.  They share recipes and antidotes and speak lovingly and respectfully of their husbands.   Simcha Fisher and Calah Alexander do all those things with good doses of humor.  I even consider Jennifer Fulwiler a Catholic Mommy Blogger – though I’m not sure she would ever  describe herself that way.  Even my own humble blog talks about living out my vocation as wife and mother.

But all these blogs don’t feature countless pictures of beautiful, thin people dressed like hipster models, living lush lives.  They don’t showcase gorgeous homes and awesome baked creations in every single post.  Maybe the CMBs are missing out on a huge market of childless, overeducated, atheist feminists because we don’t, for I believe they’re not actually reading those Mormon blogs for the writing – I think they’re looking at the pictures.  Glancing at many of the Mormon Mommy Blogs (MMBs) it’s obvious that the author has money – much more than my husband and I.  Her home, clothes, camera, healthy food, activities – are all so nice because 1 – she has good taste and a creative eye and 2 – they can afford them!  So of course it’s drawing people in – who doesn’t like looking at pictures of nice things?  But one of my friends asked a challenging question:  Would the blogger’s message come across as vibrantly if she lived off of an income of say, $30,000?  No matter the answer, the perk of the catalog-like life is that the MMBs are passing on a positive message: Motherhood and married life is beautiful and rewarding.

I love being a homemaker – wearing my apron, baking and cooking, decorating for the seasons, playing with my kids out in the yard.  My marriage is fun and loving – I respect, appreciate, and love my husband.  He’s my best friend and with our kids we have one very happy family.  But all of it is hard, too.  A lot of the time I have to try really hard to greet my husband with a cheery, “Hey babe!  I’m glad you’re home!  How was your day?” instead of saying, “Dinners on the stove, the boys’ diapers need to be changed, make the kids pick up the living room” as I walk past him, heading out the door so I can get away.  The housework can be tedious, I always burn the bacon, and no one else in the house even cares about the seasonal decorations.  And while I think the Mormon blogs do a good job of being positive I think the Catholics are balanced.  That’s something I appreciate because my every day life does not look like the lives portrayed in MMBs.

In the end I cannot argue against the fact that the MMBs do a lot of positive PR for marriage, family life, and their faith.  And I don’t want to take that away from them.  Perhaps there is a problem with CMBs which is why Julie and Matchar don’t know about them.  As one wise friend pointed out, “people who aren’t Catholic [may not be able to] get past all the lingo and terminology that Catholic mom bloggers use. So… while the message may be good, the reader tunes it out. Beauty on the other hands grabs us from the very beginning and is hard to go unnoticed.”

Yet, the general consensus amongst my friends  was that while we younger Catholic moms appreciate the beauty, the good, the holy, and the celebrations that can come on blogs we also want humility, honesty, and some nitty-gritty.  The first years of marriage and motherhood are challenging and a lot of fumbling goes on – it is abundantly good to have realistic role models in the blogosphere who can help you not feel like a failure and remind you that the vocation is a gift and a joy.

Photo credit.

Bonnie Engstrom

Bonnie Engstrom

Bonnie Engstrom is a cradle Catholic and stay-at-home mom. She married her dashing husband in 2006 and they now have five children: one in Heaven and four more wandering around their house, probably eating pretzels found under the couch. Bonnie lives in central Illinois and gets excited about baking, music, film adaptations of Jane Austen books, and the Chicago Bears. She was a cofounder of The Behold Conference and she blogs at A Knotted Life.

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8 thoughts on “we give it too”

  1. Excellent! Branding and PR has nothing to do with the Catholic faith (post forthcoming). Branding and PR has everything to do with selling a product. That will never be authentic but always scripted and in the end a facade. May all you Catholic Mommy bloggers keep it real, so that the world will know that God came on earth in a feeding trough and died on a tree. Most of the world lives somewhere between the two, and your witness is what the world needs (not wants). Pax.

  2. I wish whoever said that quote about beauty grabbing you from the beginning, would write her own Catholic Mommy Blog. I bet it’d be great… 😉

    And I totally appreciate the realness, as well as the beauty, of your blog. Thank you.

  3. Amen sister. When I wrote my comment on Julie’s post, I wanted to say what you said, but couldn’t because I was about to change a diaper. ha! That’s the life. 🙂 As a Catholic mommy blogger who isn’t a hipster (I don’t think), thanks for writing this!

  4. Sarah, I honestly don’t know who is following the CMBs, although my personal blog has Catholic and noncatholic followers. I bet it’s a tougher pill to swallow. But, personally, I don’t feel like the secular, childless women are getting a fair picture of what family life and parenthood is actually like from the MMBs. (I’ll speak more freely in the combox.) If I were to quit my job thinking motherhood was going to look like a MMB I would have been REALLY depressed when the reality set in. And angry. And resentful. Oh wait – that’s EXACTLY what happened to me! Thank God there was Rachel Balducci and Jennifer Fulwiler to talk about their mistakes, sometimes messy homes, frustrations, and so on. I’ll never forget the picture Jen posted of a doll face down in a fresh puddle of pee on their sofa – here was a woman I admired showing an honest picture of her life. It let me laugh and feel more normal, and I needed both of those things.

    Of all the women I know I can only think of two who have lives similar to a MMB, but even they are more “real”.

    I don’t want to sound like I’m bashing MMBs because I honestly think they offer a lot of good, which is why I didn’t speak so frankly in the post or combox after publishing the post. I just think that, for me, reading a MMB is like reading a fashion magazine. I won’t look like that, it’s not my syle, it’s not real life as I know it, and yet it makes me feel like I’m not living up to expectations.

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