So I considered blogging for a long time before I actually took the step to begin; it wasn't that I didn't want to try it, it was that it seemed a bit daunting. I worried about keeping up with what I'd planned to do, I worried that expressing my opinion on aspects of parenting would leave me wide open to criticism and mostly I worried that no one would ever bother reading because there are already so many fantastic blogs linked to parenting out there. I've always wanted to be a writer and a blog seemed like the ideal way to fulfill that ambition, so I took the plunge and wrote my first post. They say 'write about what you know' but I like to think of this as writing about what I don't know and I'm sure many of you can relate.
Shortly after I'd posted my first post I read an article about how most bloggers are lost in the abyss of 'forgotten' blogs within 2 months of starting and this worried me a great deal. Writing is far more than putting words down on a page, so I always thought that starting it and then abandoning it would be quite sad really. This is probably why I hadn't started before and when I did start I couldn't imagine just not writing anything for a few months.
Before I knew it, life got in the way and my blog appeared to have suffered the same fate as so many before it, despite all of my good intentions. It was another article that popped up on my Facebook newsfeed that prompted me to get back into it, it was about how bloggers are not taken seriously and explained that despite so many people making a successful living out of their blogs they are still not considered 'employment'. It made me think about how useful blogs actually are, both for the writer and the reader. For the writer you have that release of putting all of your thoughts down in one place; for the reader there is that relief that someone else is going through something similar. For both there is that sense of connection and empathy which, lets face it, is imperative when trying to survive as a parent. I'm just not sure how anyone can justify that blogging is not employment, not when there are so many people out there who make a very fortunate living out of their talent.
Now I'm in no way proclaiming that I am one of those people, but the fact that the article got me so riled up really pushed me into having another go. Who cares if sometimes I get it wrong? Who cares that I have no actual pictures on my blog? Who cares that some days just blur into others and I don't write for a while. There is one thing that us parents need to remember. We need to remember to take time out for ourselves and whatever form that takes we need to embrace it and treat it with the same importance as getting a decent sleep. Blogging makes me happy, so I'm embracing it in the same way I embraced roller skating as a child - getting straight back up once I hit the floor.
