By Meredith O’Brien ’91

A frank chronicler of her life with her husband and two children in the Detroit area, Melissa Summers authors an award-winning weblog (blog) sarcastically named “Suburban Bliss.” She touches on issues great and small, from how to cope with a lice outbreak to her controversial appearance on the Today Show where she discussed consuming, adult beverages with fellow parents while the children played.

I started reading “Suburban Bliss” in 2005 while researching an article on the increase in number of parenting blogs. Summers’s blog was exactly what I, a mom of three, had been looking for. It was an alternative to cheerful publications that offer “surefire” solutions to parenting woes, with articles on how to stop your child from whining in seven easy steps . . . but the steps never involve buying ear plugs or paying a sitter so you can travel out of earshot.

Before my twins were born in 1998, I prepared for parenthood the way any good journalist would. I researched it. I immersed myself in the contemporary parenting culture, which, in recent years, has begun to favor “intensive” parenting. It seemed every how-to book, parenting magazine, and Web site thrilled in telling parents how they’d doomed the next generation by not being ideal role models 24-7.

I quickly became disillusioned with harsh judgments that left me doubting my maternal instincts. Hadn’t previous generations survived just fine without all this “information”? I began to publish humorous tales of my parental miscues, hoping people would relate, but I continued to feel alone in my imperfection.

I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the pressure to be perfect. Online I found a community of mothers and fathers who were open about how hard and nutty parenting can be. I found parents like me—people who think letting children play outside without someone directing their play is a good thing, that some TV is okay, and that banning children’s music from the family vehicle is self-preservation, not selfishness. I wasn’t the only one craving reality-based parenting dialog. Technorati, a Web site that earlier this year was tracking more than 74 million blogs, catalogs nearly 100,000 blogs as parenting-related. Former TV journalist and award-winning blogger Lindsay Ferrier (SuburbanTurmoil.com) told me in an e-mail, “You won’t find ‘real,’ non-airbrushed moms in magazines or on TV shows. You’ll find them on the Web.”

After I finished the article, I started my own blog, a combination of parenting news and commentary, sprinkled with personal anecdotes. As soon as I started blogging, I learned that people who post comments on blogs can be cruel. There is such a thing as too much openness.

Once I wrote a post on my blog about how, while at a neighbor’s pool with my spouse and children, it suddenly dawned on me what good swimmers my older children had become:

From Meredith O’Brien’s “Boston Mommy” blog, August 22, 2005:
It didn’t dawn on me right away, as I chatted with neighbors while sitting next to a backyard pool. My almost-7-year-olds, who just this summer learned how to swim at a local outdoor pool we frequented, were swimming with aplomb. In the deep end.

With just Styrofoam noodles to keep them above the water.

And they were unafraid. Sure, they’d taken a six-week swimming course a couple of years ago but since then have very rarely had opportunities to swim and really didn’t have a firm grasp of this whole swimming thing. Until this summer. But here they were—as I sat with the parents all watching our kids in the pool—swimming. And swimming well. What a transition from the beginning of the summer when they started with life jackets and could now swim on their own. And I was in awe of them. Never a strong swimmer myself (hubby was a lifeguard in his teens), I’ve had a lingering fear of deep water dating back to an ill-advised leap off a diving board at a town pool when I was a kid and didn’t really know how to swim. I sank to the bottom and panicked, was motionless as I felt as though the powder-blue walls of the pool were closing in on me. A lifeguard had to pull me out. Ever since, I’ve had an aversion to being in water that’s above my head for any long period of time (like more than a minute). So to see my eldest duo frolicking, I realized it was one of those moments where they will move forward before my eyes. And I will let go.

This prompted an e-mail from a reader who called me a narcissistic, reckless parent who wasn’t paying attention to her kids, who could’ve drowned. Because I hadn’t explicitly stated that there were six adults sitting around the pool (including a firefighter/EMT) watching the children, the reader assumed no one was and slammed me for it.

After a few more bumpy experiences, I began to hold back some details of my family’s life. But other bloggers, like Summers, continue to reveal themselves, despite the sometimes venomous flak. Once, after Summers had complained about her spouse, a reader wrote that she didn’t deserve her husband and warned her to work overtime to make him feel appreciated or he’d leave her.

The online parenting world connects like-minded people while at the same time exposing them to criticism and scorn. Online bulletin boards for instance, where parents post questions and answers on family topics, can both help and hinder. On Babble—aimed at “the new urban parent”— discussion boards on hot-button issues such as breast-feeding are supportive of different viewpoints. Not so at BabyCenter: There, discussions about discipline are full of bad posting behavior, nasty enough to stop fruitful dialog in its tracks.

Ferrier, author of Suburban Turmoil, takes Internet rancor in stride. “When I got my first mean comment, I was devastated,” she said. “But then I discovered the nastiness seems to come from people who have more deep-seated issues than a simple disagreement with what I’ve written.”

In the vast expanse of the virtual parenting world, you are free to navigate away from the negativity with a click of your mouse and seek out people who think like you and may have similar wacky questions and stories to share. The job of parenting is hard, so when you find nonjudgmental support in a perfectionist world, it’s a breath of fresh air. Like having coffee with a friend. At any time of the day, while you’re still in your PJs and bunny slippers. And they don’t mind a bit.

Meredith O’Brien ’91 is author of A Suburban Mom: Notes from the Asylum. She is a columnist for “Parents and Kids” (parentsandkids.net) and MommyTrackd.com. She blogs about parenting for the Boston Herald (bostonherald.com/blogs/bostonMommy/) and teaches journalism at UMass Amherst.

Some of Meredith’s favorite parenting blogs:
Suburban Bliss: Parentally incorrect anecdotes from Melissa Summers, Michigan mom of two who coined the phrase “Momtini.”
Mindy Roberts, The Mommy Blog: Tales from a divorced California mom of three who’s brutally honest about marriage, employment, and parenting woes.
Rachel Mosteller, The Sarcastic Journalist: Random, acerbic thoughts from mom of two (and former reporter) in Texas.
Lindsay Frerrier, Suburban Turmoil: Fearless parenting commentary from a former TV journalist, Nashville mom of two, and stepmom to two teenagers.
Babble, a hip parenting Web site with blogs and snarky commentary that’s the antithesis of perfect parenting.
Manic Mommies: Erin Kane ’91 and Kristen Brandt podcast and blog stories; honest and down-to-earth about how parents parent in the real world.