The Jan Brady Syndrome

I wasn't there last year but it was the one session I was really upset about missing. I think at the time I probably would have raised my hand as well. Now...now I'm not sure. I certainly have moments where I do feel invisible or like an outside but overall I don't think I feel that way most of the time. I think to an extent I've pretty much always felt that way, even long before I hit an age where I could be a mom. I've just never completely fit properly into whatever round hole was placed in front of me.

Sassymonkey ( http://sassymonkey.ca/ ) and Sassymonkey Reads ( http://sassymonkeyreads.ca/ ).

Seriously

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings ( http://www.flamingohouse.net/ )

Dont forget that. :-)

Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings ( http://www.flamingohouse.net/ )

It's certainly an idea worth exploring. Will think on it some more -- and I encourage others to do the same...

Pamela Jeanne

http://www.SilentSorority

Excellent points. 

As for my invisible comment...I was thinking about the BlogHer session last year "Women Without Children in the Blogosphere" -- which encompasses both of us as well as other women who don't yet or might not or, or.... the list goes on. We are routinely overlooked in society -- mostly as you say -- because society doesn't know what to do with us.

Teri Tith, the moderator, asked those in the room attending the session to raise their hands if they felt invisible. Almost all the hands went up. She wrote about the concept here as well: http://purplewomenblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/purple... ( http://purplewomenblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/purple... )

Pamela Jeanne

http://www.SilentSorority

I love this, hope you don't mind if I keep going? You can tell me to shush any time. :-)

So you'd only consider building a community like the midlife bloggers or the twenty something bloggers if you felt like the advertisers were interested?

Ya know, if Lisa, Elisa and Jory had thought that way we wouldn't be here with some advertisers. ;-) We also would probably give up at the end of the day because while moms are a good advertising draw right now, we are not a shoe in to get the big ad bucks. And upon reflection, who is? I mean really? I don't even understand advertising which is why I'm not in the biz. hah

I personally think advertisers are crazy to not go after SINKs and DINKs, in this economy the folks with the disposable income are not people like me and TW with six kids and two disabled relatives living with us - it's people like you and your guy. Who knows, if you built a community the advertisers might just look twice?

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings ( http://www.flamingohouse.net/ )

I honestly don't. I feel like sometimes the world doesn't know what to do with me. Sure, sometimes I do feel like I'm being scuttled away into a corner where I won't need to seen but you can bet your booty that when it happens I'm certainly heard.

I think that society likes to group things as "same" and "different." In the mind of society moms go in one group because they are the same (which is totally wrong and doesn't work but that's another issue). Society would like to group the rest of us as one group as "not moms" but it doesn't work. Even just between the two of us we aren't the "same" because we don't have children for presumably different reasons. (I say presumably because I've never tried to have children and for all I know I could be infertile.)

Sassymonkey ( http://sassymonkey.ca/ ) and Sassymonkey Reads ( http://sassymonkeyreads.ca/ ).

Sounds like an opportunity. 

Pamela Jeanne

http://www.silentsorority.com

Yes the BlogHer of the Week was in fact a mom but her post is NOT about being a mom.

It's about... well Pam... you need to click the post.

We have a lot of moms who blog on BlogHer and most of them don't blog about their kids.

Kim Pearson is a mom - she almost never in fact errr never as far as I know blogs about her family on BlogHer.com. She blogs about law and media.

Sassymonkey on the other hand has no kids but she blogs a lot about Young Adult literature because she likes the genre and knows a lot of other people do too.

Any time you come to BlogHer, you will find blog posts that feature moms. You'll also find posts about topics that are not parent focused but do happen to be written by moms and you will find posts written by non moms about non mom topics.

I have a suggestion and I'm not trying to be a pain in your rear. It's a real suggestion - have you ever thought of building the community that you want to see?

The midlife bloggers came to BlogHer, much the way you do, and didn't see exactly the representation they wanted to see. I replied to them much as I always reply to you - look here and here and here... and in the end, they wanted to build something that looked exactly the way they wanted it to look and I love that.

Twenty something bloggers network has done much the same thing, though I'll be honest and say I don't visit them as often because... I'm not twenty something. :-)

Many of those women still contribute posts here or comment on blogs or link to our stories. They attend the conference. We're all members of the greater women's blogosphere. I support them just as often as possible and I would certainly support any site that you and the childfree or childless women wanted to build.

What do you say?

~Denise
BlogHer Community Manager

Flamingo House Happenings ( http://www.flamingohouse.net/ )

Thanks, Sassymonkey, for acknowledging the "otherness." You hit the nail on the head. There's a bizarre-ness when we're made to feel invisible. 

Pamela Jeanne

http://www.silentsorority.com

As someone who at the moment doesn't want children (and doesn't know if I ever will) it hits me differently that it does you I believe. But there's still a sense of "otherness" about it, be it online or when I'm the only one at a women blogger meet-up that doesn't have children. Truthfully 99% of the time it doesn't bother me but that other 1% of the time part of me wants to kick and scream and say "Hey! Woohoo! Over here! What about me?"

Then I stop and remind myself that it's not anyone's fault individually. That it's not the fault of any of the mommybloggers I read (and I'll confess I read many) that they get pitched great stuff by marketers because the marketers are too lazy to work out a campaign for single women or women without children (and then even when they do they usually get it wrong). I remind myself that it's not their fault that society as a whole is befuddled by women who don't have children. I remind myself that they are just telling their story the same way I am. And then I'm good again.

Sassymonkey ( http://sassymonkey.ca/ ) and Sassymonkey Reads ( http://sassymonkeyreads.ca/ ).