Thursday, May 28, 2009

The illusion of the perfect blog life

My friend Dawn and I were chatting about which blogs we frequent and why. I have to admit there are a few oh so popular blogs that I just don't enjoy. Part of it is that I feel like they represent an image of a type of life and lifestyle that is a fantasy and difficult to maintain, yet its put forth as the reality of their lives. Ok, call me a hater and perhaps their lives are just that blissful but as my 7 year old would say "COME ON!". I don't know anyone living or dead with 4 children who doesn't spend their day stooped over like an old crone picking up stuff just to maintain some semblance of a clean and orderly home. I don't know anyone who sets a group of small children loose to paint and doesn't end up with paint somewhere they don't want it. I'm not being judgemental, I'm really just pointing out the obvious. All these sweet, staged photos of "corners of my life" or of a child quietly reading on a quilt made with the fiber they spun themselves after sheering their own organically fed sheep gives me the hives. It's giving the rest of a complex. Surely, we must not have gotten the memo telling us how to have that life too. I guess if I have to be fair, it's sort of like looking at a fashion magazine or watching Martha Stewart on tv. We all think, wow that's neat, I'd like to have or do that. But we all know that it takes a team to put that image together and in the end it's really just a fantasy...it's not real. I don't want my home or my life to look like it just flew off the pages of some magazine.
The blogs I really dig are the ones from real folks, the moms who blog about the burnt toast or the near nervous breakdown they thought about having. The ones I love are the ones from people who aren't afraid to show their imperfections. Now that's life, that's reality. Those are my peeps.

3 comments:

The Layne Family said...

Amen, sister, AMEN!!!

Dawn said...

Oh ...come on S! We all know your life is a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. Perfect children, a clean and tidy house with no evidence of a family actually "living" there. Plus, I know for a fact that you always greet "A" at the door at the end of the day dolled up in a string of pearls, make-up on and wearing a perfectly pressed dress. With the smells of a pot roast in the oven and the kids quietly reading after you have bathed them, and gotten them into their jammies and they are ready to go off to bed so that you can sit back and relax in quiet.....

Heather said...

love this post! My life is totally perfect---just don't look under the kitchen table. ;-) I've totally stopped reading the more 'staged' crafty/parenting blogs I initially loved for some of the very reasons you mention.