who does she think she is

This is great. Just when I felt like I was going to pull the plug on my blog--any day now, have said everything I could possibly say, bored of the sound of my own voice, bored of talking about myself, bored of myself full stop--I read this essay about motherhood and blogging, and clicked through to some of the linked bloggers, and then read this NYT story on parents who blog (sub required). And I started remembering why I used to love blogging so much, and my god, I feel inspired again. Just like that. Man, I love bloggers, blogs and blogging!
And this in the NYT story caught my eye:

But the question is, at who's expense? How will the bloggee feel, say, 16 years from now, when her prom date Googles her entire existence?

I was reminded of how my child's father (we are not together) recently argued that when I write about our child, it is exploitative and amounts to child abuse. But I wonder how anyone who has read anything I've written here can possibly think that. I like to think that one day, Harley will enjoy reading about me, us, our life now. I was about to write that, in fact, I wish my parents had had blogs about us kids, to go with the Super-8s and photo albums--but then I remembered that my father does actually have a blog now and it did give me the shits when he wrote about me! But the difference is that it was so negative about me that I had to stop reading it after a few days. He still blogs, and maybe he doesn't call me 'Her Nastiness' or 'Cyberbrat' anymore, but I don't like to risk raising my blood pressure by checking. On the other hand, I don't think Harley could ever find anything other than pure love and joy directed towards him on this blog.
Still, I must admit I like my old stuff better than my new stuff. I prefer the stuff I wrote back when I was a starry-eyed, bushy-tailed little newbie blogger, barely aware of having more than two or three readers, and as a result, I think, much less self-conscious. These days I feel a bit overhyped (and underpaid), and some of the original joy of blogging has been diluted by the knowledge that there are always going to be people from my real life (ex-lovers, fathers, judges) who are not reading me for the fun of it but who have other motives. But, well, stuff 'em. The show must go on...........