Moms find support, information, "better perspective" in blogosphere

With the right medication, the Duvall resident began to get better. A doctor suggested she find a hobby, so she turned to blogging, eventually documenting her experience on the Internet. Soon, readers were e-mailing her for advice about their own postpartum mood disorders.

"It was therapeutic because it gave me better perspective on my life and motherhood," said Thompson, 29, of Duvall, who writes about her 5-year-old daughter, whom she calls Laylee, and her 3-year old son, Magoo, on her blog, Daring Young Mom. (She uses nicknames to protect their privacy.)

Thompson is one of the more than 150 bloggers on Seattle Mom Blogs, an online community she co-founded, who chronicle the ups and downs of parenthood in online diaries, or blogs.

"Communication tool"

Posts range from the lighthearted (foods not to share with toddlers), to the intimate and confessional and very real, such as Thompson's postpartum experience. Across the blogosphere, mommybloggers share thoughts on everything from lack of sleep to amusing things kids say to the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a mother of five, as vice-president candidate on the Republican ticket.

"I really think that women are embracing this form," said Rita Arens, editor of "Sleep is for the Weak" (Chicago Review Press), a new book featuring a compilation of posts from 25 of the most popular mommybloggers nationwide.

After her daughter was born in 2004, Arens, now 34, of Kansas City, had difficulty adjusting to motherhood.

"My friends were still going to bars and jumping out of airplanes, and I was stuck at home with this screaming child," she said.

She just couldn't identify with other parents she was meeting, but in the blogosphere, she found support. When her daughter was having trouble sleeping, she e-mailed three bloggers for advice, and "they actually wrote back."

Blogging is the perfect communication tool for time-impoverished women, said Lisa Stone, co-founder and CEO of BlogHer, an online community for women who blog that boasts more than 4,200 blogs in its mommy and family category. "We use it how we want to and when we want to."

More than 36.2 million women write and read blogs weekly, according to a 2008 study conducted by BlogHer and Compass Partners. Among women ages 25 to 41, parenting is a favorite topic.

Connecting with others

Blogging was a creative outlet — and a connection to other adults — for Jen Blackburn of Seattle after she quit a full-time job at Getty Images in 2007 to be a stay-at-home mom.

"It was something to help me transition without losing my sense of identity," she said.

She compares blogging to having a friend's shoulder to cry on, or, in some ways, a pen pal. It's also a record of her son's childhood.

In a recent post on her blog, Absolutely Bananas, she reflects on sending her 5-year-old son off to kindergarten: "My heart aches for you. For the baby that clung to me. For the chubby toddler that wobbled beside me. For the tall, confident boy with the infectious laugh who I'm sending off to kindergarten in the morning," she wrote.

Many mommybloggers say their readers really seem to respond to personal stories, although occasionally they do receive scathing comments.

"They sting," said Leslie Doherty, a 32-year-old mother of two in Lynnwood who blogs on Mrs. Flinger.

Sometimes there is even money to be made.

A few months after starting Daring Young Mom, Thompson was hired as a paid blogger for Parenting.com. It's not a fortune: Thompson says it pays for her kids' activities, such as ballet classes or trips to the zoo, and she likes getting paid for being at home writing about what she does every day.

"It sort of adds a little validity to the mundane tasks of motherhood," she said.

And she now views bad days as good blog fodder, finding humor in situations such as potty training or doctor's visits.

"Generally, I'm just writing about the small, daily moments of being a mother," she said.

Joy Jernigan is a freelancer living in Redmond.