Baby blogs click with parents

By Molly Millett
Knight Ridder Newspapers

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When co-workers ask Alecia Davis if she has any photos of her baby son, Colum, she doesn't pull out her wallet — instead, she sits down at the computer and logs on to her baby's personal Web site.

"I think it's the new baby book," Davis says. "It's a whole new way of communicating."

Baby Colum's site is actually an online diary — a Web log — kept by his dad, John Davis, a stay-at-home dad who is also an English teacher. Besides photos, the site also includes regular entries about daily life, comments from readers, poems and statistics (number of teeth, height, weight, etc.). It is a grandma's paradise.

But the funny thing is, it's not just friends or family who log on to the site to look at 10-month-old Colum's latest candid photo. Strangers do, too (often other parents).

On the Web To view some interesting online diaries visit: www.trixieupdate.com Want to know how many diapers 11-month-old Trixie has used in her life? You can also view the "Trixie Picture of the Day" and her bottle and sleep logs on this site, maintained by a stay-at-home dad. www.celebratingcolum.org "If my heart emerged from my chest/to become its own clean, tiny being,/it might be you ... " So goes a poem about 10-month-old Colum on an artistic-looking site created by Colum's dad, an English teacher and stay-at-home dad. www.suburbanbliss.net "A Pickle is Touching My Sandwich" and "The Last Diaper" are just some of the fun stories you can read about this mom's life with two children under the age of 5.

In fact, a whole community of parents from across the globe has gathered on the Internet to share stories and advice and musings about parenting small children. Many are doing this via Web logs — also known as baby blogs.

"I haven't written in Olivia's paper journal for months and months and months, but I'm on the computer all the time, checking my e-mail, making a note about our day (on her online journal), taking a break to see what that 2-year-old in New Jersey is up to," says Julia Janousek, of Minneapolis, a mom to 2-year-old Olivia and 6-week-old Xavier.

Janousek belongs to Live Journal, a Web site that helps people create and maintain online diaries. As part of that service, Janousek can link to the Web logs of "friends" she has discovered on the site — in her case, that includes parents who have children about the same age as hers.

"I started this as a way to talk to other moms," Janousek says. "I'll write that Olivia will only eat cereal out of my bowl, and I'll get comments like, 'Oh, yeah, that happens at my house, too.' It's almost like real-time advice.

Getting started If you'd like to start your own online diary about parenthood, many sites can help you get started, sometimes for free. Check out www.blogger.com or www.typepad.com. Privacy: Parents interviewed for this story suggest keeping a password-protected site, so only people you know can view it. Or, keep out identifying information, such as your last name or the city where you live. Consider calling your children by nicknames. Don't write about going on vacation until you've returned, or that the kids are alone after school for a few hours. Keep the stories succinct: Write short stories. You don't need to write every day, says blogger dad Ben MacNeill. Write as if it would be interesting to read, even if you didn't have children, he says. Keep it real: Aim for honest, thoughtful writing, says doctoral student Clancy Ratliff, who is studying the experience of motherhood through Web logs. After all, it's more interesting for other mothers to relate to you when you get real about how you are sick of the baby crying versus how motherhood is the best job in the world (they know, they know). Statistics: How many diapers does the baby use every day? How many bottles? How many teeth does the baby have? Keep track of the numbers for a fun element to your writings. Linking: Link to other Web logs you find interesting, or other sites and articles.

"I keep this journal as a way to get things down on paper to remember them, but also as a way to have a community of parents, to know I'm not alone and crazy," she says. "We read each other's journals all the time."

Clancy Ratliff, a student of rhetoric and feminist studies, is studying the Web logs of mothers for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Minnesota. Ratliff said she got to thinking about how Web logs that discuss the Iraq war and the upcoming U.S. presidential election — often written by men — get as many as tens of thousands hits a day, but that the Internet audience is not as wide for the women who write online about politics in a more personal, everyday-life kind of way, such as parental leave policies of corporations.

"People may think, 'Oh, this is just someone's blog about changing a diaper,' but these are women who are using blogs to have a voice in the public sphere, to get their opinions out there," Ratliff says. "It's a pretty powerful thing for a lot of women."

In a way, these blogs are documenting everyday history: "These people are talking about the daily work of motherhood," Ratliff says.

Kelly Brown, a mom and a blogger, realizes the importance of parents sharing their daily life. Brown founded bloggingmommies.com in 2000, which links to about 850 Web logs of moms and yes, even some dads. They include everyone from pregnant moms to moms detailing life with a newborn to women seeking to adopt a child to moms whose husbands are serving in Iraq.

"Their sites are usually read by other moms," Brown says. "It's like high school, where you stick with your clique. This is the mom clique."

Of course, dads write, too. Like Ben MacNeill, a stay-at-home dad from North Carolina who writes in humorous and touching detail about life with his 11-month-old daughter, Trixie. The site includes diaper, bottle and sleep logs and charts, as well as a "Trixie Picture of the Day." The New York Times recently mentioned The Trixie Update, which typically draws as many as 1,000 to 1,500 visitors a day, sometimes from as far away as Brazil and Japan.

"Initially, it was mainly for my wife's benefit, because she went back to work much earlier than we wanted, and this was a way to keep her feeling connected," MacNeill says. "If I knew now the scope it would take on, I don't know if I would have started the thing. But it's a creative outlet for me — I'm a designer and artist by trade. When I write, I try to write as if it would be interesting for me to read even if I didn't have a child. I try to keep my eyes open to what is interesting, what is new."

MacNeill appreciates and learns from the comments and parenting advice he receives from visitors, who have formed an online community of sorts.

That community includes Ben Manevitz, of New Jersey, father to a baby girl about Trixie's age. After happening upon Trixie's Web site, Manevitz is hooked and now reads it at least once a day, often posting comments. Manevitz says MacNeill's musings speak to him as a father.

"I feel like I kind of know Trixie, and if I saw her on the street, I'd recognize her, not as if she were a celebrity, but like I was a member of her extended family," Manevitz says. "In the 'It takes a Village to Raise a Child' theme, I feel like part of the village."

And of course, you can imagine how Trixie's grandma feels about the site.

"The community has wrapped their arms around Trixie in such a dear, sweet way," says Grandma Becky MacNeill. "I check it about four or five times a day.

"It's something every grandmother would love to have."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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