As someone who is heavily involved in research every day, I tend review a lot of statistics and insights. This research is really quite something, especially since it’s a look into the future and the resounding stats are still ringing around my head; over 80% of 0-2 year olds have a digital footprint and 20% of those are not even born. Like it or not (and I don’t mean in a facebook way) this is the future we are all facing. Social networking, social media, social web, social whatever, is not going away anytime soon – but some of us might be embracing it while others are just none the wiser.

The launch of the research coincides with The Bailey Report, reported here in The Guardian recently. This worthy report about protecting children needs further thought, and I’ll review it in more depth in another post. So back to Digital Diaries; it’s not a flawless piece of research as it compares tying shoe laces and bike riding to internet usage in the under 3s and 5s; I don’t think comparing those skills stack up. However, what was really pertinent was the way it was presented; as a study, a hard back book aimed at children and also an iPad app. It was well thought out and even though there were some great headline stats, I don’t think we should really be suprised by the statistics. Many of us post pictures of our children on facebook – I’ve noticed a lot of those photos are around birth, hence the post-natal digital footprint.

While looking into the digital future is akin to stargazing, it doesn’t hurt to think about it. In fact, it’s something we all need to face up to.

For those of us who are bloggers, there is a badge of pride that comes with followers, friends, likes, recommendations, reviews and badges. So why wouldn’t children be any different? I know several teenagers and younger, who blog, run big pages on Myspace (what’s left of it) and of course, Club Penguin, Bin Weevils and Moshi Monsters are all open to under 13s.

But my big drum to bang is who is showing the way to the new generation about online behaviour? Are schools teaching children how to manage this? No, they are far behind. Is our major public service broadcaster aka the BBC giving how to guides? No. So what’s left for parents? Very little except the common sense of those who are digitallly savvy.

According to the spokesperson from the IWF at our roundtable, it is the remit of influencers, namely Mummy bloggers who have a digital space, to show the way – and that is the way we should all be moving. As a blogger, I don’t know if that’s the right way, I am teaching my daughter the ropes of online behaviour, but what else can I do? Who or what is galvanising our communities to share knowledge and experience without scare mongering? Children’s issues are always so low on the agenda, I don’t want to see this slip through the net, hence my post.

Here are some of the key take outs of the research:

- More than half (51 percent) of 6- to 9-year-olds use some kind of children’s social network such as Club Penguin

- Roughly one in five use email, and despite being underage, 14 percent are on Facebook, according to their parents.
47% of 6- to 9-year-olds talk to their friends on the Internet.

- Almost one in six 6- to 9-year-olds and one in five 8- to 9-year-olds have experienced what their parents consider objectionable or aggressive behavior online

- 58% of parents admit they are neither well-informed nor understand their children’s online social networks

- 56% of parents were certain their family computer has parental controls or safety programs in place

Internet usage is part of our regular conversation at home and I aim to keep it that way.

Linda Jones at havealovelytime asked me for my views on her recent article Travel PR meets Parent Blogger – How to do it Properly. Linda is someone I have great respect for her. Not only is she prolific and an all round good egg, she has amazing insights and vision. Her blog gotyourhandsfull set up for twins has been a valued resource for a friend of mine who is Mother to twins. Havealovelytime is a great resource for the family traveller. To be honest, it’s probably one of the only community of shared experience about travel and days out for families, by families. That’s why during my work at lastminute.com running it’s social media efforts, I recognised the great work she was doing and named the blog in two lists, the Top 10 Travel Blogs and also the OYLB Top 50 travel and lifestyle blogs.

Which brings me on to my response to Linda’s post. If you’re a blogger there are some things you should know about how brands view you…and not just in travel either. Your blog can make for a rich and rewarding experience through the communities you engage with which will without any doubt include brands.

And what makes me so qualified to write this post? I’ve been a corporate blogger for over four years and a parenting and lifestyle blogger for nearly two. My advice is for bloggers who are finding themselves approached by brands, pr agencies, digital agencies and advertising agencies who are all trying to get a piece of this new blogging bubble.

First and foremost
If you’re a blogger with a PR and journalism past, you will certainly understand the migration of media away from the traditional print medium towards social media. If not, well I think you’ll be learning pretty quickly that you are in demand, and here’s why

1. It’s all about you baby!
And why are you so popular? Brands are on the look out for UGC / CGM (user generated content / consumer generated content) in blogs. This could be; reviews, news, praise, rants or a personal story and it does not have to be orchestrated, negotiated, planned or placed. If there is a link back to the brand site or product mention this will help with SEO (how high they appear on the page on google) for the brand which is great for them and affiliates the two of you, giving them credibility. If the company is using a monitoring tool such as Radian6 they will find your post or tweet and be able to compile it with others to find out the public opinion and calculate sentiment. What does this mean for a blogger? You’re opinion will be analysed. Sounds weird doesn’t it? Maybe a bit Big Brotherish (in the true Orwellian sense)? Don’t be put off. It’s massively democratic – if you put your opinion out there in the public domain, it is being listened to and smart companies are using their ears to learn and hone their offerings. If you’re unhappy about a product or have an issue, you might even get a response from the company and your problem resolved. As many parent bloggers know and others who write about fashion, beauty, travel – you can also get to build strong relationships with brands which are mutually beneficial.

Your blog + postive brand mention = authority and credibility for brand

2. Why is blogging so popular all of a sudden?
Blogging is very powerful and wikipedia is a good source of info on the varying trends if you want to know you knitting. Since the arrival of the internet into the mainstream, the last 10 years or so has seen a paradigm shift in the media and not just from print into online. Traditional journalism has been eroded by brand power and people power – both are putting out content in the new realm of social media. News is broken on twitter by people not journalists any longer so what does this mean for the corporate bod? They’re lonely as they don’t have many journalists left to talk to and they still need to create buzz around their brands.

PR – journalism = no press coverage
PR + social media = online coverage

3. Why brands want to work with bloggers
If you are a travel company, Linda has listed several in her article, it’s a difficult sell to put your product in 40-50 words on a website and add a thumbnail. Getting bloggers to experience and review product or holidays gives meaningful feature length content and opens the door to conversation.

Blog + brand product/experience = meaningful content

4. If brands are getting it wrong – you can do them a favour, point it out
The thing is, a lot of brands are terrified of social media and that’s why they’re getting things slightly off key at times.

Have you had an email from a PR company asking ‘when to expect coverage’? or from a marketing person saying ‘I need your decision today’. These are the questions that PR and media people ask on behalf of clients as they harvest their crop of media coverage or bums on seats for an event. At work, I constantly have to remind people inside companies that bloggers have different sensibilities; they write about niche interests and usually out of hours and the usual rules don’t apply – so they need to be patient, understanding and show they care. In fact, I would say 20% of a social media role is actually an emotional, yet professional, investment into your work. On this blog, I am on the receiving end of invites and offers for trips, products to review, news and events. I feel well within my right to explain where I stand to brands or media companies; if I am not going to write about something, I will tell them why. If they want to me to come to events, I have baggage. I’ve recently explained to a PR agency that unless they can arrange my transport to an event I can’t go because of the time pressure of the school run. They have booked me a taxi and now we’re both happy. Other brands run evening events in town; they forget the obvious; Mummy bloggers don’t live in London and have kids to put to bed. The conversations which we have with our blogging communities must continue into the relationships we build with brands to make them mutually beneficial.

Blogger = opinion
Blogger + feedback = change

5. So what to do if you are approached by about your blog?
If you are a blogger, and you’ve never worked with PR, marketing and advertising agencies or even big global or domestic brands like Disney and Butlins, you may feel wowed that you are receiving attention. It’s great isn’t it? But it’s a two way street, you are valuable because you have set yourself up as an independent blogger with a point of view. You may also experience the rabbit in headlights effect too and feel overwhelmed or even pressured into committing to something. Do make sure you ask questions; why are you inviting me? what are you expecting me to do? do you want time commitment? are you giving me product? are you offering to pay for a post? A good social media expert will set all of these things out for you but if they have not do not be afraid to answer questions. It is in both of your interests to make this work if you are interested in the brand.

Blogger + social media expert = conversation

6. What to do about unwelcome attention
As Linda and many other bloggers have stated, bloggers are often on the receiving end of unwanted, mismatched, irrelevant and untimely promotional material. As time goes by, agencies compile lists of bloggers which they rely on to blast out news. It’s important that you respond and tell them you want to be removed off that list or better still, tell them what you are interested in. Often the only way to reach a blogger is by a comment on their blog, an email or a tweet – how do they know what’s going on in your head? Of course, great social media experts will read your blog but an intern sending a press release out to 50 journalists and 100 bloggers will not take such care. Help try and change this it before it becomes common practice.

Blogger + feedback to agency = progress

If you have any comments or questions, do feel free to ask me here or on twitter @nixdminx

The thing that really gets me is that statistics are being darkly manipulated used against Mums to scare them into buying products. Apparently we are being challenged to eat grapefruits rather than greasy fry ups because 88% of family meals consist of takeaways rather than fresh fruit and vegetables.

So how does this 88% calculation stand up to scrutiny? That really is quite shocking isn’t it? But let’s see how that pans out over an average month of family meals;

30 days x 3 meals = 90 meals

Therefore 79 of them would be take aways.
79? How does that work? If the average cost if £15, that means the family food bill would be £1185 per month. You could afford a personal chef for that amount.

I mean, come on, is this your daily routine?

‘Morning darling – can you get your school uniform on please.’
‘Yes, Mum, I’m hungry’
‘Don’t worry, the burger van is on it’s way and I’ve got them to do a kebab for your packed lunch.’
‘What’s for dinner tonight Mum? Can we have my favourite?’
‘Oh you mean left overs?’
‘Mmmmm.’
‘Now let’s have a look, we’ve got some pizza crust, some manky cold chips and a few gherkins chucked out of a burger bap. Oh and look, here you go; last week’s special fried rice. That’ll make a great smorgasbord. I tell you what, why don’t you invite some of your friends round and you can sit on the sofa and watch movies and eat finger food.’
‘Great! My school uniform is feeling a bit tight though.’

I doubt it is, but this thoughtless manipulation of figures amounts to a very dim view of Motherhood.

I’m on the frontline of parenting. I’m a Mum who understands the issues around food and nutrition, not a journalist on a deadline who is looking for a headline. Is it lazy PR to send me a press release meant for a print writer or is it failure to understand the mindset of a blogger? Even worse, is it spam?

Why on earth would I write a blog post damning families on such flimsy evidence, just because a press release tells me to do so? And it even mentions lack of fruit in school childrens’ diets to counter balance ‘unhealthy lunches’. That actually has increased my blood pressure just reading it. Where do ‘unhealthy lunches’ come from? Jamie Oliver is mentioned in the press release. Great. Apparently fruit intake has gone up 25% but hell, even that’s not good enough! I’m incensed.

Why has this campaign taken this approach of knocking down any progess and demeaning us Mums (apparently Dads don’t get a pasting because it’s the Mums who are not doing the cooking and feeding of kids properly according to the press release.)

Perhaps digging a little deeper and maybe asking families why they got take aways instead of cooking would be the next logical step in fleshing rather than obesifying (sic) the story out.

So I am not going to write a tabloid style story about ‘Take Away Shame’ and how I managed to swap speed dial for slow cooked gooseberries with liver.

I’m going to cite why people get take aways;

Friday night is fun time?
After a week of hard work, if you haven’t got the energy to go out, a take away of Indian, Thai or Chinese is something to really enjoy, especially if you know your local restaurant. Our fabulous Thai makes a slightly less spicy green chicken curry, which funnily enough has peas, broccoli, cauliflower and red peppers in. Hmmm, where’s the guilt there?

My babysitter can not cook – or if she did, she’d burn the house down…
Well, she makes a mean tuna sandwich but that’s as far as her repertoire goes. So when she does babysit, I’m going out to have a fun evening, so Miniminx can have a little indulgence too and have a pizza and waffles.

Because I can’t make Peking Duck
While I’m a dab hand at most things in the kitchen. I can not for the life of me imagine cooking Crispy Duck from scratch.

And while I’m on the subject, perhaps reading up on the latest news around the 5 a day fruit and veg myth might enlighten PRs as to the topicality and transience of food trends. Science not surveys are very key in nutrition too. Grapefruits for example are utterly jam packed with Vit C and can really help in the uptake of touch nutrients like iron.

Sadly, tucked away at the bottom of the press release are some really interesting food tips; get your children to grow fruit, take kids to Pick Your Own farms. I would love to see more thought go into this issue that has been raised but sadly it’s a missed opportunity. Maybe a guide to the the best PYO places and what’s in season would make me evangelise this story but the facts as they are just don’t do it or even think about it.

Oh, and raspberries? That’s from my PYO trip last Summer, and I still have some home made jam left from them. Grrrrrrrrr.

And whatsmore, if you’ve got a daughter, you’ve got to go through it all again, step by step. As I’ve just celebrated Miniminx’s 10th birthday, the onset of the dreaded periods (shock, horror) is looming. My doctor told me that start dates are brought on by weight – I kid you not. So apparently the more a girl weighs, the earlier she begins. I think it’s tosh but I was in a panic because at just under 5 feet tall, she’s not heavy but she’s going to be very tall very young.

We’ve discussed puberty and body changes, and I’ve tried to have the ‘period’ talk, but brandishing a box of Lillets and complaining about the rigors of PMT is not really going to answer her questions. Perusing the shelves of my favourite bookshop in Kew on Saturday, I hit parenting gold. more here I found this book:

Have you started yet? you and your period: getting the facts straight

‘OOOh darling – loook!’
‘_ _ _ _ _’ those gaps in the quote marks are the open mouthed horror from my 10 year old!
‘Perfect. For. You!’ I smiled.
‘No’
‘Just add it to the collection over there’
‘I’m not reading it!’
‘Yes you will.’
The poor thing was slightly wide-eyed and a little pink around the cheeks. Poorly? No just horrified at my brazen brandishing of a book about ‘bits’.

I don’t know why but I thought it would be a good idea to for both of us to read the book over lunch at Pizza Express a few doors down from the shop. It must have been a subconscious connection between the subject matter of the book and seeing the chef spread tomato sauce over a the smooth flat, white dough.

I opened the book.

‘Here you go, What is a period?’
She grabbed the book off me. And handed it back with a frantic silent chuckle.

I looked at the open pages

‘Oh MY GOD!
‘Mummy – ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!’
‘What the …..’
There were two drawings, illustrating the big jump from Where’s Wally to Where’s Willy. They were titled Before Puberty and After Puberty and the images have etched themselves on my retinas for all eternity.

Next was an all out raid on my ability to take the whole subject matter in anyway seriously as Miniminx happened up on the instructions on how not to put a tampon up your anus, complete with cartoon. We were in hysterics to the point of crying with laughter.

This book, well, it has demystified the whole thing for my daughter and it’s actually the ‘all you ever wanted to know about periods but were afraid to ask’ book for girls about to reach ‘that age’. To say it’s graphic is an understatement but it’s done in a very engaging way.

It’s also a great icebreaker on the whole topic and it covers off many topics surrounding puberty. My daughter had blushed cherry red, beetroot red and more over the subject matter but she actually sat down to read the book today. So while we’ve howled, hooted and snickered over the subject and the book, she’s got an easily understandable manual to refer to all of her own and in her own time.

There is a big line to be drawn between providing children with straight biological information and this book does do that. However, it is quite a lot for a young child and aimed at an age group ranging from eight to 17. It’s the kind of book that is probably best shared between friends so they can shriek and laugh together about all those embarassing things that adults have to deal with.

Much as it’s great to share this kind of information with your growing child, in my mind, there is still a need to keep discussions as innocent as possible. Some things are better left alone. When she ran over to show me a black and white drawing of the female undercarriage, I may have snickered slightly but I did hold myself back from saying anything. ‘Bet you didn’t know you had another pair of lips’ would have been a step too, too far.

Bet you’re glad you had a boy now aren’t you?

I have the parental equivalent of a school girl crush on Miniminx’s teacher. She’s pretty and young and the kids adore her. She breathes an air of dignity and calm which I find unusual.

I wonder what makes a good teacher. I asked my daughter
‘Why do we both like your teacher so much this year?’
‘She’s understanding Mum’
What a statement. That’s quite something for a child to say and I think she’s right. She has the charisma and gravitas to pull off the role. She’s like a Horse Whisperer, she’s been teaching the kids yogic breathing before the register so they all start the day calm and collected. She lets the children bring their favourite books from home.

Her teacher last year was also pretty and young, but I didn’t like her that much. She would regularly update the class on her marriage plans, she came across as immature and couldn’t control her class. It was a disappointing year.

Miniminx’s teacher the year before last was a man, he was neither pretty nor young but I adored him and still love to chat to him whenever I see him in the playground. He was the first male teacher she’d ever had and, along with other Mothers, was a bit concerned at how she’d react to this new classroom influence. She came home upset within a few days and said that the teacher had shouted because some of the boys were playing up.

‘What did the boys do when he shouted?’
‘They shut up’
‘But why?’
‘Because he told them he was teaching a class and that they should behave.’

They never played up again. The tone was set. He never had to shout again. It was an interesting journey and calm out of chaos ensued. He helped me find ways to help my daughter overcome her shyness and find her own voice. He encouraged us to look outside school for stimulus and over that academic year, she progressed.At the end of the school year we all clubbed together to buy him a gift token to his favourite curry house and tickets to his football team – he was chuffed to bits. We were unaware at this stage that he was going through an adoption process with his partner and has since cut down his hours to co-parent.

There’s also a sports teacher, who is even less pretty and less young, but he’s hilarious and I always have the mental snapshot of him from a wet and windy Summer Fair a couple of years ago, he was standing under a waterlogged gazebo singing karaoke. And the song? Why Does It Always Rain on Me? by Travis.

But what next?

I know many people who quote a teacher as the inspirational influence over their chosen career, or the champion who helped them overcome parental adversity. I certainly had mine, my Art Teacher battled with my persuaded my Mum to allow me to apply to Art college.

In primary school, I see teachers chasing Ofsted and I’m disillusioned and worried that my daughter will not reach her full potential. I know that several parents are paying for tuition to help their children get along, coincidentally, their children are also in the athletic squad. Am I not being pushy enough I ask myself. Is there some invisible membership I don’t belong to?

What do you all think? Is pushy parenting the only way to get our children into the right place or places or do we have to roll with it and let them find their own way?

This image might look a bit familiar – it’s not quite the original from my banner. Those are my almost but not quite really all time favourite Miu Miu shoes and my daughter’s gorgeous tiny red ballet shoes which I hand sewed sequins on for her when she was three.

And there they are, large as life, sitting on my kitchen table posing away for the camera – I never knew it would take so many shots to get the right ‘one’. As I sifted through the shots I’d taken, it took me ages to choose which one to go with and of course, I tinkered with a lot bit before I got it to fit!

You may wonder where this is heading (pardon the pun)…and don’t worry, I’m not experiencing another fit of nostalgia (I’m saving that for my Happy Go Lucky Year in the Mumsphere stories)…well it’s all more about the painstaking method of picking and choosing the right thing for you.

I blog here because I love it and I feel at home here and so the thought of making it a more commercial venture has never really been on my mind. Until recently. I found out about a really cool collective which screamed and pouted the seductive word ’boutique’ at me when I checked out its site. I happily signed up to join the blog network and was expecting it to happen early next year. Today I’ve had a lovely and quite unexpected Christmas pressie today by being listed already and you can now find me on handpicked alongside all the other fabulous blogs I have got to know this year, and more.

If you are a keen reader of blogs, do drop by and have a look around handpicked – there are some great reads there and a good mix of fashion, urban lifestyle and parenting. If you’re a beauty queen, there are some truly brilliant ‘insider’ blogs – they’re always my favourites – plus for a restaurant and London junkie like me, there’s Hardens and the Londonist too.

I got a text yesterday from a dear friend who I used to work with, we both share a love of theatre, men and good wine.

This text was to tell me that he’d spotted ‘My Blog’ in the Tots 100.

This is quite ironic.

He looked at me quizzically when I first told him about ‘My Blog’. After two bottles of wine I blithered showed him the site and how it all worked and how amazingly clever I’d put it all together and how it runs – he was slightly more won over.

This is also quite ironic.

I was thinking how on earth would he know about Tots 100? How many gay men read parenting blogs?

So I texted him straight back.
‘Sally twittered a link the list’ he replied.

Wow, I thought….then I wondered again.

Sally, Sally, Sally……she must belong to UKPress…because that’s the only list me and my friend both follow…hmmmm.

Bingo – she’s a journo and badabadabing – she created the Tots 100 – I lover her!

And thanks, I am chuffed to bits again to be at number 36 – it matches my bra size….which is also….ironic….

So when the lovely Tara asked me for a photo for her profile on me, I thought, hang on a minute, I’m really happy to talk about my blog and parenting, so I sent her my mugshot.

And she has run a lovely article this month on mychild.co.uk.

Here it is and here I am too…

Thanks to mychild.co.uk for being such a great web site too, we need more of these please.

She puts the laptop on her lap, wiggles her fingers over the keyboard, frowns, squints then makes a really evil honking/laughy noise (a bit like a donkey). Then she smugly hands me back my computer and looks at me like I’m a loony.

She says she hates twitter but she loves having a sneaky peak at Tweetdeck and seeing who is saying what. She just gets it, no fear, no technophobia – it’s all part of her world this social media-2.0-thingummmybob-stuff.

I wonder what kind of technologies will be around when she is my age. Possibly robots? Everything ‘smart’ and hopefully eco friendly – zipping around like the Jetsons?

But I digress. This week I took it upon myself to stop doing everything in a frenzy and teach Miniminx some basic skills – how to make a Ribena that doesn’t rot teeth, how to make a Crusha milkshake without spilling any milk, how to load a dishwasher and then I left her to her own devices to load a software programme…she did it but sadly the software was out of date. I showed her how to search for an update for it online, just as I would try and teach her about looking for something in a supermarket. It’s strange that something so complicated has now become incredibly simple. She’s a computer native.

It struck me the other day while all this was going on that while we are avid readers in our house, the new literacy is computer literacy. We have gadgets coming out of our ears and I’ve sadly got to admit that I’m the one who is occasionally confounded while my daughter is a natural.

I grew up around computers – hundreds of them; oscillators, a garage stuffed full of circuit boards, and I was occasionally allowed to blow them up play on them. But it never seemed to have any real link with life, it was all about boffins and sci fi – not really mainstream, but look at us all now. Mad-fer-it on mobiles, Wii, iPods, iPhones – iThis iThat…. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that one day I would be writing a blog, for the whole world to see.

What will we all be doing in 50 years? I hope it’s not going to be like Forbidden Planet, that used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid…I’m going to have to go for a lie down my brain has crashed.

I’m am so chuffed – in fact gobsmacked to be a new entry in the Top of the Pops (well Moms and Pops) – it’s brought back memories of me and my brothers and sisters (six of us, a veritable bratpack) dragging out the dressing up box on a Sunday night, sticking polystyrene cups wrapped in foil on the end of bamboo sticks and glamming up to sing the Top 40 to an audience of two screeching, coughing, choking and (looking back, I hope) laughing parents.

This is obviously a sign of my age – whatever happened to Top of the Pops, 45s (flexi-discs????), chart show run downs and seeing my brother (then 11) drag up in a shiny gold and orange number over his Leeds footie kit? Who knows.

I digress darlings, caught up in the flow of nostalgia, I’m neglecting to mention what has brought this all on. It’s the Tots 100.…

Thank you lovely ladies for this lovely present! I was advised to post this gift in the sidebar, but I don’t know what one is, well I do really, but you lucky buggers bloggers on typepad can do this I can’t on WordPress right now…and I’m a little bit confused too, because looking at the code I can’t enlarge it (if you saw my last post you know I’m not one to undersize my images).

So that’s a drat and double drat from me but I don’t care! I’m gobsmacked-blown-away-cheshire-cat-like-and-have-a-warm-fuzzy-feeling-all-over. And it’s made me think a bit more about my months of blogging.

So what’s the big deal? It’s a huge deal because blogging has become a true essential in my life, it’s an extra pair of hands in parenting.

I began at the very tail end of last year because I’d hit a big wall and been quite seriously credit crunched – a new job had sadly evaporated almost as the world economy crashed and burned and I was left facing January 2009 with apparently no hope. So there I was wondering where to go, what to do and how to keep busy and out of trouble.

Hmmm, oh well, I thought. Perhaps a blog would help keep me sane. So I started to write, a bit gingerly at first, a real scaredy cat, but then I got hooked. I had no expectations, I didn’t think anyone would even read it.

But guess what – it has kept me out of trouble, sane at times and even better, some lovely people have even taken the time to read it and speak to me. Wow!

I kid you not, if I was a psychologist, I would recommend it as therapy.

Blogging has been really given the thumbs down by a lot of people ‘in the know’ in the media, such as Janet Street Porter here slagging off all us child-laden saddoes who have a reason to live,  but they don’t understand the real reasons why people blog. It’s rather like the time when paste up designers refused to learn DTP. Failure to embrace the future means it will reject you. I’ve always loved Janet Street Porter’s work but I think this time she is wrong. I can’t wait for Janet Street Porter to start twittering and feel the noise – come on rise to the challenge!

Anway, back to those of us back at the ranch who put the kids off to bed and sound off in the 2.0-scope. Why oh why do we venture into this new and unknown territory? Perhaps it’s very much like parenting and we are all curious and want to hear about other people’s experiences. Well if you don’t, I certainly do, and I hear these reasons from blogging parentsall the time about why they do ;

1. Catharsis
What a great place to indulge that need to let out niggles, worries, wants, whatever it is in our lives, it’s better out than in!

2. A diary
I believe bloggers are journal writers. The most beautiful thing I ever read on a blog was that these blogs are ‘love letters to our children’ – so whoever wrote that, I’m sorry I can’t remember where I read it, but it is the most poignant and touching belief and a beautiful thing to define, so thank you…

3. A discipline
Blogging is a way of keeping addled minds on the straight and narrow – be it sleepless nights, unemployment, separation, forthcoming nuptials, long haul flights, ex-pat living, we all need to verbalise it, albeit online. Apparently, poetry helps to fend off depression, I truly believe that blogging has the same effect.

4. Connecting
I never in my wildest dreams ever thought that blogging would enrich my life the way it has. I’ve met interesting people, read great stories, had amazing conversations and feel that the other bloggers I connect with are interested people with a common goal – it’s not about business or self aggrandisement, we’re raising the next generation and all of us in very different circumstances but it’s a great new playing field we’re on and so much fun to boot. But that aside, it’s affirmed my Motherhood, flippant as I may be, being a single parent is no easy road but through blogging it seems easier.

So, while I’m still agog, and possibly sounding a little twee, I have to raise a toast (be it sliced brown Hovis or champagne) to all those others who have created this extraordinary new cultural phenomen. Here’s my shout out here (or rather post-bedtime whisper) and a big thank you to all of you who in the first instance reached out to me and gave me that little nudge, that kind comment and more than occasionally a huge laugh and also left me reaching for the tissues to either stem the eye watering laughter or the honesty of a bad experience that made me cry. I may not know you all so well but I just want to thank you for being there, that’s all

Violetposy
A Modern Mother
Rosie Scribble
Potty Diaries
Jo Beaufoix
Dulwich Divorcee
MTFF
Alpha Mummy
I promise That I will Do My Best
Single Parent Dad

PS: I don’t take saccharine. I’m giving you all a cup of builders’ tea with two heaped spoons of Tate & Lyle, enjoy! Btw, tagging maybe a bit scraggy, sorry all x