Musings of a Marfan Mom

November 19, 2009
by marfmom
13 Comments

How Mary Saved Me from Teenage Mortification

This week I’m answering the MamaKat’s prompt #5: Describe a moment you felt embarrassed by your parents

I think a more apt prompt would be “When WEREN’T you embarrassed by your parents?” My mother is not usually one to over-share or cause a scene (except when she passed my baby picture around my class in middle school, or took my girlfriends and me to see Spice World [I only saw it out of peer pressure, I tell you!] and screamed OH MY GOSH THOSE ARE NAKED BUTTS COVER YOUR EYES! during the “male dancers” part…). My father, on the other hand, was an artist with bipolar disorder. We lived in a small town and EVERYONE knew who he was, for better or for worse.

Now, in high school we lived in a house whose back could be seen well from the highway. Not built by us, it was an open-beam home and had been constructed with a crane dropping in the skeleton of the house, which caused attention in our town: enough that we got a lot of unsolicited feedback when we did some necessary remodeling.

Christmas was Dad’s favorite season of the year. He loved to decorate the house inside and out, sometimes in unconventional ways. The new house proved to be his perfect canvas, and our first Christmas there he decided on a blue theme.

I don’t have a problem with blue Christmas lights. I do have a problem with abstract designs done randomly all over the exterior of the house in those huge, no longer sold, blue Christmas lights.  Frustrated with trying to detangle the lights, my dad literally threw the whole lot of them onto the side of the house and nailed the mess in place.

You can imagine the comments I heard around town.

The icing on the cake though occurred when I was being driven home from a babysitting gig by a neighbor. “Oh my GOODness!” she yelled as she slammed on the breaks. “YOU HAVE THE VIRGIN MARY ON THE SIDE OF YOUR HOUSE in Christmas lights! How did your father DO that?”

I looked at the mottled mess.

“Oh, you know, he’s really creative like that.”

Please don’t strike me down for that fib. I was an embarrassed teenager.

November 17, 2009
by marfmom
11 Comments

The Business of Blogging

This evening I had the opportunity to participate in an interesting conversation about blogging and money, specifically getting paid for blogging, whether that’s via ads, giveaways, or particular posts. The discussion was fueled by the LA Times article, “Blogging moms wooed by food firms”. Major companies, most recently Nestle, are paying big bucks (and other perks like steaks, fancy hotels, etc.) to prominent “mommy bloggers” in exchange for favorable articles about their products.

But what is ethical?

This is so murky that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has even gotten involved, creating stringent yet vague rules for blogger disclosure, which go in effect Dec. 1st.

So tonight the Twitter conversation #blogmoney started off about ethics, but became more. We talked a lot about bloggers disclosing their business practices to each other. In American culture talking about how much we make is taboo, but should it be the same in the blogging “business?” This is something I’ve experienced first hand. Taking my blog public has been an interesting process, and I sometimes feel like I’m trying to beg my way into a secret sorority. How do increase readership? How could I go about convincing a company to sponsor a giveaway? As I’ve tried to ask these questions I haven’t heard a response. I assumed that there was a fear of competition, or maybe I was just being incredibly rude.

The interesting point made this evening was that maybe by NOT talking about these issues we’re actually shooting ourselves in the foot. Companies might balk at paying reasonable rates if they know other clueless bloggers will pay much less than their time, their writing, and their readership is worth. If veteran bloggers, one woman suggested, took new bloggers under their wing to discuss these issues, new bloggers might be able to get a better estimation of their worth. Some women got very upset that anyone would ask even how much they make from their blog, let alone tips of the trade. In my opinion, that misses the point. I don’t care who makes what, but it would be great to compile a general range of “going rates” for bloggers to draw from. When a few bloggers underestimate their worth, it affects everyone.

We also discussed the legal implications of the new FTC guidelines (and how little any of us understand them), how we operate our individual sites, how we got started writing, and which domains/servers we use. Ms. Single Mama created a poll about Mommy Blogger Earnings as well.

To summarize a tweet from Faten aka ConnectingWomen (because direct Twitter quotes often don’t make sense) “This conversation is a milestone because critical thinking has been awakened in all bloggers: newbies, middle, and veterans.” I would agree: tonight we were able to get a great conversation going, I met some really interesting women, and I hope these conversations will continue.

What do you think? Should talking about “blogging money” be done more? Is this another facet of the Feminist revolution? Is it ethical to take money for reviews or giveaways on your blog? Please leave a comment!