A month and a half ago, Amy Chua’s book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal, and since then, she’s been the subject of intense controversy over her very specific style of parenting. In an interview with Jezebel, Chua explained that her “greatest disappointment is that this book is entering the public dialogue as part of the mommy wars, even if something good comes of it. I — foolishly or not — wish people would review it as a memoir, for its literary merits. It’s filled with contradictions and complexities and an unreliable narrator.” Chua’s frustration is apt; willingly or not, her opinions were boldly thrust into a national dialogue about what we should do with our children, and who is doing it best. But her choice to claim her book the latest victim of the mommy wars (or her recognition of it), Chua brought up deeper issues of what we think about “mommy bloggers.”
Mommy bloggers get a lot of heat. So much in fact, that writer Jessica Smith penned a list of the Top 10 Misconceptions About Mommy Bloggers that was culled from a call for tweets from other mommy bloggers. Many complaints of centered around the perception that they make either enough money or too much, and the perception the outside world has of mommy bloggers. According to Smith, the number three misconception is that mommy bloggers even like being referred to by that term. “There are quite a few moms that blog but really don’t touch on motherhood in their blogs at all,” says Smith. “Many blog about fitness, business, advertising, travel and while they are Moms…it’s not the focus. Moms are women before they embark on motherhood and being a mom …
