The Power of Negative Blogging

Yesterday I blogged about Penelope Trunk's post about shared parenting, which featured Marc and Amy, who are self-professed "shining pillars of excellence" (An "English as a second language" kid in Mimi's 5th grade class coined this term and I love it.) in the realm of shared parenting.

Who would have thought the object of my ridicule--Amy--would ever see the post, but she paid my blog a visit and left a scathing comment. In case you can't figure out how to get to the comment section of that post, here is her comment, followed by my response:

Maggie,
It seems important to you to find ways to ridicule our passion to share the benefits and challenges of equally shared parenting with others via our website, the article, and yes, someday, a book. No one is forcing you to adopt or even agree with anything we say, although you do sound like you are doing so in your own way anyway - both in your new marriage (if I read that right) and in your relationship with your ex-husband.

Why did Penelope give us advice on preparing to write a book? Well, because she makes a career of advising people, because she linked to US originally and we wrote to thank her, and because the few emails we exchanged over a year ago were free and encouraging. Tell me you wouldn't appreciate the same mentorship from someone for something YOU believed in. And by the way, the book we hope to write isn't about us - it is about equal parenting. A book about us would be, well, freaky to use your words! Have to agree with you there. We are far from perfect, but we're one of only a handful of people (until now) actually speaking up about the practical good and bad about equally shared parenting.

Anyway, I have no interest in engaging in your spit-fest, but wanted to reach out to suggest that you needn't give us so much power.

Take care,
Amy
Amy | Homepage | 07.08.08 - 10:20 am | #

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What's important to me is thinking of things to blog about on a semi-regular basis and, sorry, but things I find funny are easy fodder.

The thing is that I 100% agree with the concept--it's the "look at us--we're perfect!" way you present yourselves that I find funny. It's not just you guys, and it's not just me who finds stuff like your site funny--that's why sites like http://bestparentever.com/ exist.

I'm sure I, too, possess many annoying and self-promoting qualities; however, I can't see myself ever presenting myself as a shining example of anything--I figure anything I'm doing, someone else is also doing and probably doing better than I am.

But who knows--maybe I'm wrong...after all, you and your husband are living proof that nobody's going to promote you if you don't promote yourselves. After all, even though I, too, practice shared parenting, you're the ones with the book deal and I'm the one with 15 people reading my blog. And I'm not saying this facetiously--I'm serious.

And hell yes I would appreciate the same mentorship, especially from someone like Penelope. Not only is she a mentor, she has the power to make your book a success by spreading the word and promoting it. More power to you—but part of putting yourselves out there is, of course, having people who see things the way I do ridicule you. Then again, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that any press is good press and negative reactions will sell just as many books as positive ones will.

And now naturally I have to ridicule her comment, especially because she used the word "spit-fest."

A Banner Day in the Blogosphere

It's been slow going for me lately, creatively-speaking. I haven't felt like blogging but was alarmed to see my already minimal audience dwindle by the day so I've really been trying to squeeze some posts out. Not like you could tell or anything.

But I just finished reading Penelope Trunk's blog and don't even know where to begin my rant. Not about Penelope--she is my idol--did you know she makes $15,000 for one speaking engagement? Granted, she is, I'm sure--as one woman in my book group once described herself and the term became one of my favorites--a "gunner"--e.g. total type A, super competetive woman. But hey--she's a good writer and makes enough money to afford a $50k "house manager" in addition to a nanny and a housekeeper. I bow to her....but wouldn't want to be her.

Anyway, her post focused on this NY Times article about shared parenting and I couldn't help but think that the Stuff White People Like people would have a field-day with it.

Where do I even begin? Well, as Penelope did, with the "insipid photo," of course. Are there honestly people out there who see a photo like this and take it at face value, rather than laugh it off as a parody of yuppie parents? Are there really people out there so humorless that a photo like this serves only to get their competetive "best parent in universe" juices flowing?

I confess I didn't read beyond the first page of the article; I figure the title of the article, together with the term "breast milk" juxtaposed with the spooky photo, probably says it all anyway. What's up with a story that spans 10 web pages? Ten pages should be the sum total of an entire SITE--never one article.

But I digress...because after I did my three-point glance at the page and returned to Penelope's post, my eyes lit on this sentence:

A second disclaimer is that Amy and Marc, featured there as the poster children for shared care, are also people I’ve helped—about how to pitch themselves to the media so they could get some articles written about themselves and get a book deal. And they, too, were nice.

Did someone say book deal?

Seriously, though--there are people out there who think they are fascinating enough that they seek advice on how to pitch themselves to the media? I mean, regular people, fascinating--in their own eyes, at least--for just being regular people? While there are many fascinating things about me that would undoubtedly make A+ book fodder, I would be forever banished from polite company if I ever wrote it--not to mention it would probably send my mother into heart failure. My blogging in general already has her half there.

Back to Amy and Marc though--the picture on their website is even freakier than the one in the NYT article. Aren't sites that look like this usually reserved for engaged couples? At first glance I thought Amy and Marc were caterers or something--what with the chef hats and all--and figured that accounted for the desire for media coverage. But no--as you can see for yourselves, Amy and Marc are merely trying to pitch their perfectness to the media.

This post is already long enough and I still have one more thing to cover so I'll leave it at that...suffice it to say that I'm sure an upcoming topic on Stuff White People Like will be Shared Parenting.

Which brings me to the final--and probably best--link of all. ThirdPath--a favorite resource of Amy and Marc's--ranks right up there with Le Petite Paradis in terms of its "you've got to be kidding me" quotient. I'll have to write about ThirdPath another time, as it deserves its own post, but I'll just say that if my career as a Bottle Whisperer doesn't pan out I'm going to try offering "coaching calls" for $150 an hour.