Outside the adventure zone.

I am not the "play" parent anymore. There, I said it.

I swear it wasn't always like this. I did play with them when they were smaller. A lot. There was painting and puzzles and peekaboo and play dough and all the other play stuff. We would bake cookies and get messy and then all tumble into my big bed for a nap, exhausted and blissful. I used to take pictures all the time, I needed to capture all our silly adventures together. And we had lots of them. Swimming, forest walks, bug hunts, a day at "Fish Mouth", hanging out with Lucy the elephant or howling with the wolves or Gibbon monkeys at the zoo, roaring at dinosaurs at Jurassic Forest. Life with the littles was ridiculously fun!

I am not sure when things changed. Maybe it was when both of them started going to preschool at the same time. And then came the other activities to fill up our days. All of a sudden there were swimming lessons, gymnastics, Sportball, music, dance... All the activities and programs meant to enrich our lives and give my kids new skills and learning experiences. This year it was kindergarten, soccer, school events, and more.

I have became obsessed with our schedules, finding programs that they can both do or at least do at the same time and then getting us from point A to point B to point C and back again. I wait outside their classes with all the other parents or sneak away quickly to grab a coffee or run an errand. Somehow, lost amidst the thrill of them being old enough for "unparented" classes and finding all these great programs and activities, I have become the person outside of the adventures. It is second nature to me now to get them to their classes, find my favourite waiting chair, pop open my phone and entertain myself on social media for 30-45 minutes. Yes, that is right, I am THAT parent. On the phone, with my head phones on, in my own world, separate from the one I have paid a lot of money for my kids to be in.

I am ashamed to admit it, but all of that sitting on the sidelines or in the waiting rooms "unparenting", seems to have seeped into my world at home too. Too often I find myself telling the kids to go play together without me (which they do really, really well) while I sit back and waste time online or busy myself with housework. It took me overhearing a conversation between Little C and his dad last week to make me realize how much this kind of behaviour is affecting my kids.

Dad: "Why are you so upset with Mommy right now?"

Little C: "Because she never wants to play with us anymore and is always chit-chatting or working on her phone."

And there I was, standing around the corner with a laundry basket in my hands and my heart breaking into a thousand pieces.

What have I done? How did I let this happen? And more importantly, how do I change things?

Here is my plan.

It is time to find the FUN again. School is done in less than 2 weeks. We have one bike camp booked and will continue with our swimming lessons throughout the summer, but other than that, we are not enrolled in any other programs. The kids and I are going to make a list. A summer bucket list. A big one we will write out and can put up on the wall, full of all the fun adventures we want to have this summer. And then we are going to do it ALL and I am going to take a LOT of pictures!

Because this tiny bit of disconnection that my child is feeling from me, and to be honest, that I am feeling from my child, I have done this to us. For all the good intentions I have enrolling my kids in extracurricular activities and enriching arts and physical activity programs, somehow in all of it, I have let them down. In my efforts to provide them with new life experiences and skills, I have forgotten the most important one.

Being connected to me and a part of my world.

And the thing is, they are not only a part of my world, they are THE MOST IMPORTANT AND PRECIOUS parts!

So if you'll excuse me, I have some reconnecting to do and a bucket list to make with my children!

Natasha~

P.S. I will post our #summerbucketlist once it is completed (and which will likely be a dynamic one) and we can all have some great adventures this summer! I'd love to hear what's on yours too!

Week 6: the status quo revolution

More lessons learned on my path to being Lean for Life with @Infinitefit. 

The status quo. The existing condition or state of affairs.

In layman’s terms, the status quo in everything is what we like to call our “comfort zone”. It’s the place of good enough, not rocking the boat, keeping the peace, and the happy medium.

And a lot of people are very happy with the status quo.

I spent last weekend in a room full of do-gooders from my city looking for ways to challenge the status quo, to move people out of their comfort zones that privilege or race or gender has granted them. And this was one of the biggest challenges we all faced in our projects, our endeavors and our desires to do-good for our communities.

The status quo.

These feelings of “everything is just fine; this is just the way things are; you just have to accept the world we live in” are hard to eschew. They make up all the stories we tell ourselves to make us feel good about our lives. That we are not bad people, we aren’t hurting anyone, we pay our taxes, we eat relatively well, we “exercise” enough. In essence, we keep telling ourselves that we are A-OK.

But are we?

Head over here to keep reading... 

Thanks,

Natasha~

Fairy Tales & PIE: why we need both in a marriage.

I am a sucker for a good love story. I love a happy ending when the girl gets the boy of her dreams or vice-versa or the girl gets the girl of her dream, or the boy the boy of his dreams. I am, of course, an equal opportunity love story junkie.

The problem with most love stories is that they end at the "and then they lived happily ever after" and we just assume that this is exactly the case. That love conquers all and it is all they need to keep them happy and together until the end of time.

Imagine if we could see the rest of the story. What happens after the Beast turns back to the Prince and he and Belle start having babies. Or after Ariel loses her fins and becomes human to be with Eric and then decides to take a job that requires her to be away a lot. What happens to all that fairy tale love when reality sets in?

In the past six months it has become painfully evident to me that I am in a phase in my life where I am starting to see the statistics about marriage play out around me. I don't know if it is the 'seven year itch' phenomenon or the 8, 9, 10 or 12 year itch... it just seems to be happening  more and more. Every couple is different and has their own struggles to overcome, but I do see a little bit of a recurring theme in a lot of relationships.

It sounds so bloody cliché, but having kids really does change your life. And until it happens to you, it is hard for anyone around you to really "get it".  Everything for the next few years (read FOREVER) is all about the kids. This is not all terrible, it is after all, what you signed up for. You and your partner created these little humans together and now it is your job to love and provide for them. Your focus gets easily pulled to nurturing these new relationships with your children and it can be a steep learning curve to figure out how to love them, love yourself and love your partner all at the same time. Life is about growth and development and it is not only our babies who are doing the growing. We are too - as parents, as partners, and as individuals. If we don't recognize this growth, if we stop paying attention to our life partners, a vital connection can be lost. And then, one day, there is a very sobering realization that we don't recognize the person sitting across the table from us or even the person (ourselves) looking across the table anymore.

I am a huge proponent of the attachment theory of parenting and how important it is for our babies to have that strong sense of attachment and bonding with us from the get go. Dr. Gordon Neufeld, and many others who study human psychology and development, say that attachment is THE most significant and pre-eminent need of human beings. Connections and a sense of belonging are what make us human. And if we lose those connections in our most important and intimate relationships, if we try to replace them with things or focus our connections away from our partners, we risk losing those relationships altogether.

If life and the kids and the laundry and the yard work and work work and Facebook time and gaming and working out and taking everyone to their activities and whatever else you've got going on, is taking up ALL OF YOU, it is doing so at an expense. We may think that that expense is being tired all the time and not having time for ourselves, let alone our partners, but I am telling you now, that NO, that is not it. The expense is the subtle, slipping away of trust and confidence and the very foundation that supports our relationships.

It is very easy to fall into patterns of behaviour when our babies and toddlers are small and require so much from us. We have a schedule for naps and for feedings, a routine for bedtime, a weekly colour-coded calendar full of music/swim/parent&me/gymnastics/art classes. Not to mention all the rest of the work that needs to be done at home, at the office, at the home-office or what have you. I don't know about you, but I remember so many days that I would forgot to even feed myself, let alone have a conversation or a meal with my husband. Being an attached and connected parent is a wonderful thing, but if you don't continue to nurture the original connection and attachment that MADE your child(ren), then where does that leave you?

I just finished reading Brené Brown's book, "Daring Greatly". In the chapter about Debunking the Vulnerability Myths, one paragraph really struck me. In it Brené talks about the betrayal of disengagement:

"When the people we love or with whom we have a deep connection stop caring, stop paying attention, stop investing and stop fighting for the relationship, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in. Disengagement triggers shame and our greatest fears - the fears of being abandoned, unworthy, unlovable. What can make this covert betrayal so much more dangerous than something like a lie or an affair is that we can't point to the source of our pain - there's no event, no obvious evidence of brokenness. It can feel crazy-making."

My husband and I have always had a little bit of a relationship radar in place that lets us know when life is getting the best of us. I am pretty sure that everyone has some kind of early warning system in their own relationship. It all comes down to how much or how little attention is paid to it. The increased bickering, the loss of physical connection, the muttering under the breath, being super sensitive to every little thing said to each other - these are the warnings that we can sometimes overlook or not really think too much about, but this is just a small list of the tiny betrayals that can build on each other. And if no one is paying attention to the physical, intellectual and emotional needs of their partner (I think I'll call that P.I.E.!) than going through the motions of a marriage or life partnership will never leave anyone feeling fulfilled. Every little hurt starts to adds up and disconnection is the sum result.

We've all heard it said before, love takes work. It is a choice we have to make every day. It takes a fair amount of vulnerability too. And for a lot of people, accessing that vulnerable place in themselves is a major hurdle. It's a risk to say to the person you are supposed to be totally in love with that something is off. That THIS, the way things are RIGHT NOW, is not working for you. We'll do a lot to avoid these kinds of conversations and our fears only serve to push us further away from each other. We work more, take extra shifts, spend more time on Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter. We become obsessed with perfection and our focus becomes on how we look, how the house looks, and how the world sees us. We drown our fears in booze or food. We live with what Brené Brown calls "scarcity" and become governed by self-talk and thoughts of never being "enough" of anything to anyone. It's the mother of all shame spirals and the only way out of it is to face those fears, be your most vulnerable self and start paying attention.

For me, that meant finding a good therapist to help me face my own negative self-talk and the ways that I avoid my own vulnerability. Jane* has made me realize that I can choose to change the way I think and I don't have to revert to my default avoidance setting of "fixing" everyone else's lives around me and ignoring my own problems. It has also meant having some very honest conversations with my husband and of us sharing our greatest fears within our relationship with each other. Trust me, this was not an easy task for either of us, but I truly believe that it has made all the difference. We are both more aware and focused on making sure that we are both getting our fair share of the P.I.E. more so now than ever before.

I said it above, but it bears repeating:

Attachment, connection and belonging are the pre-eminent needs of all human beings.

We are all doing our very best to ensure that we are nurturing that kind of relationship with and for our children and most of us are getting pretty good at this attachment parenting stuff. We need to remember that we too are humans and have those same basic and vital needs. To satisfy them within our significant and intimate relationships, we all need to remember to keep working on our ATTACHMENT MARRIAGE-ING and keep the focus on our own happily ever afters!

Natasha~

P.S. You all know how much I love Pink and she always know exactly what to say way better in song version...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/OpQFFLBMEPI[/youtube]

Week 4: The "binge" repercussions.

The lastest update from my #LeanforLife and #InfiniteCoaching program with Jessica at Infinite Fitness:

This is the reality check post.

There are a lot of inspirational stories of people's fitness and diet transformations. You hear about the success stories all the time. Heck, you see them at the gym or in your own life. The people who drop 12 or 20 pounds and who really seem to be doing all the right things. And then you get on the scale for your weekly weigh-in and....

The number is going up.

This is what happened to me last week and I am not going to lie. It got me down.

REALLY, really down...

Head over here to read the rest of the story.

Everything looks harder than it is....

Here is my latest update from my #InfiniteCoaching and #LeanforLife program with Jessica at Infinite Fitness.

 I can just imagine the ad team for Nike.

All sitting around a conference room table one day, brainstorming about slogans for their biggest client. They are all talking about fitness and exercise and running and someone makes an off-hand remark… “Why doesn’t everyone just do it?”

And there you have it. Three words that have revolutionized a brand and made Nike a recognized and household name worldwide.

BUT…

Even with the biggest brand in the world telling us to “Just do it”, so many of us just DON’T.

The problem in our fast-paced, busy, busy world is hidden in that original question…

Why don’t we eat better? Work out more? Go for a walk or a bike ride? Plan out our meals better? Clean out the storage room? Or our inboxes? Or our pantries?

Head on over HERE to continue reading...

Happy Mother's Day. No, really....

Yes, here it is. The Mother's Day post.

Now before you roll your eyes and click over to some other link, just hold on....

I will not be bombarding you with sappy stories of motherhood and heavily filtered "candid" shots of me kissing my kid through a sheer curtain.

There will be no, "these are the lessons my mother taught me" huge revelations for you to get all teary about.

And I promise not to bore you with a ridiculous list of household chores I wish someone else would take care of for one day.

Nope, none of that here.

What you are going to get is a dose of reality. It may be only MY reality, but I am putting it out there because I am not completely convinced that I am alone in this.

Do you know what I really want for Mother's Day?

NOTHING.

Absolutely nothing.

And NO ONE.

That's right.

I want a full 24 hour coffee break from my job.

This job. Mothering. Being a mom. Mommy, mama, MOMMMMMEEEEEEEEeeeee!

I want a day off. And from this day forward, every year, from now until eternity , that is what I want Mother's Day to be.

This "job" is like no other job ever. You are "at the office" 24-7, 365 days a year (364 if I have anything to say about it). You are on call ALL THE TIME and have to be available for any and all emergencies, from the slightest "I dropped my bottle on the floor" to the more extreme, "This is the school calling, {insert kid name here} fell off the monkey bars and we think something is broken" or even, please let this never happen to me, "Hi Mom, it's me. Can you come and bail me out....". When you are a mom, you can't just pack up and go home and leave your work at the office. There is no logging off for the night or weekend. Your life is your work. And your work is your life.

So for this one day. This overly-commercialized, make-you-feel-guilty-for-not-thanking-your-mom-for-EVERYTHING-she-does, buy-her-some-kind-of-stinky-candle-or-another-tea-mug, day, I say NO THANK YOU.

I do not want any things. I don't want presents or flowers or candles or tea or jewelry or spa shit. Heck, I don't even want a card.

I just want to be left alone.

I want to sleep in a bit and then have a nice long shower and take as long as I damn well please to get ready for my day. And then I want to go out, by myself, for the rest of the day. I want to get a coffee at my favourite cafe. I want to go shopping at all my favourite boutiques. I want to take my dog for a long, leisurely stroll along the river valley, just the two of us. I want to go to my OTHER favourite cafe with my book and my laptop and read and write without a limit on how long I have before I need to get back to anyone. I want to eat a late lunch from a food truck and sit on a park bench while I watch people go about their day. I want to go to a yoga class and not feel rushed to either get there on time or leave to get to somewhere else to pick up someone up. I want to find a patio to sit on and have a few Grey Goose dirty martinis and a plate of nachos with extra guacamole. And then I want to go to a movie, OF MY CHOOSING, with a big bag of popcorn all to myself. I want to check into a boutique hotel and have a long bath and slip into a plush robe, curl up in the big poofy over-pillowed bed and watch all the TV I want.

So yes, for Mother's Day I want to be selfish. I want every hour of that day all to myself.

Because for every other hour of every other day, I can get all the cuddles I want from my kids. I can have as much time as I want playing in the backyard with them. I can get someone to clean my house and yes, I can even get an hour or two to myself (although they are usually at the grocery store). I don't need a special day on the calendar to ENJOY my family.

But for this day, this "Mother's" day, the day created on the calendar by some dude at Hallmark, what this mama really wants, is to ENJOY being with myself and by myself for the day.

A whole day.

ALL..... BY.... MYSELF......

Happy Mother's Day Everyone!

I hope you all get exactly what you want.

Mwauh,

Natasha~

P.S. I just couldn't resist, I love this cover, and I am pretty sure I rocked that hairstyle sometime in the late '80's....

[youtube]http://youtu.be/o22i_gqAf_o[/youtube]

{And actually Celine, I DO wanna be all by myself. At least for this one day...}

make your bed and be on time

Happiness is a funny thing. Sometimes it hits you just as hard as its arch-nemesis, sadness and/or depression.

And then you don't know what to do about it.

You don't want to talk about it, because then you'll *JINX* it. You don't want to celebrate anything too wildly, because you don't want to seem boastful or like you are rubbing it in anyone's face. And because of the nature of our often cruel and spiteful world, you hold your breath, silently enjoying your happy, while at the same time, constantly looking over your shoulder, waiting for that ominous other shoe to drop.

But why should anyone feel ashamed of being happy? That just seems incredibly counter intuitive to the whole concept.

Yet, there it is.

I'd like to blame the Internet for this shame (or more specifically, Facebook), but that's not quite right. The Internet, for all that we capitalize the word, it not an identity, not a person or persons that we can "blame" for our happiness, our sadness, or any emotion that we feel. The Internet is a means of communicating, of connecting and of sharing information. How we FEEL about that information is completely up to us. We are in charge of our use of it and of how much or how little of it we filter.

Last week, I read about tech journalist Paul Miller's return to the Internet after 365 days offline. I think most people, including Paul, expected this grand epiphany to occur during his time away from the digital world. He left the internet to find the 'Real Paul', because he thought that being online had somehow 'corrupted' him. What he in fact ended up realizing was not quite what he had in mind.

What I do know is that I can't blame the internet, or any circumstance, for my problems. I have many of the same priorities I had before I left the internet: family, friends, work, learning. And I have no guarantee I'll stick with them when I get back on the internet — I probably won't, to be honest. But at least I'll know that it's not the internet's fault. I'll know who's responsible, and who can fix it.

Right now, at this moment in my life, I am happier than I have been in months.

Life does not feel overwhelming to me right now. Maybe it is because I have slowed down and am paying closer attention to the little things more. Maybe it's because I am paying someone a crap-load of money to let me cry buckets in her office and leave all of the sadness there before our time is up. Maybe it's because I have FINALLY realized that flying by the seat of one's pants is not always the best way to go about one's life, especially when you are the one responsible for other, smaller people's lives as well.

I believe that a strange combination of a lot of little things has added up to me being a happier, more calm, more zen version of me than I have ever been before. Some of these things may seem silly, but here are just a few examples of what makes me feel happy these days.

All the beds are made every morning in our house. I never thought of unmade beds as a big deal before. We were just going to go to sleep in them again in 12-16 hours, so why bother making them? Well, I am here to tell you that it does make a difference. A made bed looks better, it makes you feel ORGANIZED and it gives you a good jumping off point in the mornings. And why spend all that money on a fancy duvet cover only to crumple it up in a ball every day?

Being on time. For those of  you who don't know me very well, punctuality is NOT one of my virtues. It's a running joke within my family that I am told to arrive at least 30 minutes before the actual start time for any important events. My clock in my car is set 17 minutes ahead for the same reason. It got to the point that the one time a few months ago when we were early for an appointment and I mentioned this to the kids, my son looked at me and said, "Mom, what does early mean?" I vowed then and there to change that and for the most part, I have. Now he asks me if we are going to be TOO early everywhere we go.

Date nights. My husband and I have always had date nights, but we used to fill them with things to do. We would go to a movie or shop or stroll through Ikea or go for a drive. Date nights now are dinner at a new restaurant we haven't tried before. They are a minimum of three hours long and we eat wonderful food and we TALK. We talk about our life, we talk about others, we discuss plans for the future, we people watch and and *sometimes* we make up funny stories about the folks at the next table. We sit across the table and give each other our undivided attention. It's not just about getting out of the house and away from the kids, it's about growing together and discovering all over again why we love each other so much. And... *ahem*... all that intellectual stimulation makes for great foreplay!

No more Facebook. I know it seems silly and according to Paul, was not what was making him unhappy, but for me, not engaging on Facebook has somehow given me a release from something that was holding me back. I can't quite articulate what that something was just yet, but I do know that it is not there anymore. I admit that I do creep on FB sometimes and have to keep my account active to manage the page for the  Natural Urban Mamas community, but I do not LIKE or COMMENT on anything. It simply doesn't seem genuine to me anymore and although I can see and love all the new baby/new house/new car/fabulous vacations that you are all posting about, I really would rather we went for coffee or I popped over to see you and the baby/house/car/pictures in person.

Losing the fear of just being ME. The other day, my good friend Jen Banks asked me to present an award at The Yeggies, a celebration of all the local and amazing social media folks in my fair city. I was thrilled to do so and immediately said yes. The wonderful Tanis Miller won for Best in Family and Parenting and it was an honour to present the woman who inspired me to blog this well-deserved award. Afterwards someone asked me if I was scared speaking in front of a room full of so many people. I said no, not at all. I may have been nervous right before I hit the stage, but I was not afraid. A few weeks ago, I changed my Twitter handle from @SAHFeminist to @NatashaChiam. And while it is a bit scary to put one's REAL name out there for all the Internet to see, it felt right. Just like being up on a stage with a microphone in front of me does.

It's a strange thing to be fearless. I don't think that it means to fear nothing. That would just be silly, because if a tiger escaped from the zoo and made its way to my back yard, trust me, there would be FEAR (and possibly some soiled underpants as well). I think fearless means to be brave and the dictionary defines brave as "being able to face fear and danger without flinching." *I* say being brave and fearless means being able to face LIFE without flinching.

And in that regard, I believe that fearlessness is a direct line to happiness. If we can face our lives without flinching, if we can own who we are, the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, and if we can do so honestly, than one day, without you even seeing it coming, HAPPINESS is going to come right up to you, smack you in the face and say,

HA!!

GOTCHA!!

Natasha~

Photo Credit: Sparklerawk on Flickr

~~~~~~~~~~~~

What about you? How do you define happiness? Or fearlessness?

How to be a proper "mommy blogger".

I have just finished watching all three first seasons of Downton Abbey. It took about three episodes of season one to hook me, but after that I was a goner. It really is a very well written, acted and produced show and I am looking forward to season 4.

I was drawn to the show for a few different reasons. One, EVERYONE and their well-bred dogs kept going on and on about it and so I had to see what all the fuss was about. Two, I have a secret obsession with all kinds of historical dramas set in England (I am a quarter British BTW). I have seen the Elizabeth movies about five times each, I am a huge fan of The Tudors, and this just seemed to fit in with the whole genre. And three, my maternal grandmother (the British part of me) was a governess for a very wealthy French family in the 1930-40s in and a glimpse into this kind of life, albeit an earlier version, was very eye-opening for me and somehow has made me feel close to her again.

The show also gave me chills at times, especially with regard to the way that women of that era where regarded. I grew up with MANY lessons from my grandmother on how to be a proper lady, on how to act properly and to know and show proper etiquette at all times. At quite an early age, I could have told you what all of the forks, spoons and knives where for in a formal dinner setting. Also, a lady never crosses her legs, a lady sits up straight and a lady has a dainty and ladylike laugh. My grandmother had a full set of the large sized Encyclopedia Britannica and would make me do laps in the house with one on my head, for proper posture of course. She used to brush my hair one hundred times a night. EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT. And then we would say the Lord's prayer and at least one Hail Mary, in French, before going to sleep. I was on my way to being a good and proper little lady! Oh Helene (what we called my granny) if you only knew!

It may not come as a surprise that I have ended up relating most to Lady Edith Grantham as a character. She is not the overtly rebellious one like Sybil or the super-traditionalist, doing her duty for the family, Mary. She constantly gets overlooked by everyone and eventually comes into her own, by her own devices and finds a way for her voice to be heard, if not by her family, then by a much wider audience as a writer for a London magazine. Go Edith!!

Why all this Downton Abbey talk?

Well, it has been an interesting week in the "mommy blogger" world. Let me just check my calendar... yup, it has been about three months since anyone took a good swing at the bloggers/writers/business women who are also mothers. And swing they did.

The Wall Street Journal published the incredibly condescending article about "The Mommy Business Trip" and, well... you can imagine the fallout. Or if you can't, you can go read all about it HERE, and HERE and HERE and oh, just Google it, you'll see.... Hell hath no fury like a belittled blogger and mother!

I admit that I too was rather upset about the article. I am not a blogging conference expert or anything, but I have attended a few and in my former career, I have also attended multiple large medical conferences, as both a sponsor and an attendee. For the medical conferences, I left my husband for 2-4 days at a time, I stayed in fancy hotels, I ate at 4 and 5 star restaurants-sometimes on my dime, sometimes on someone else's and I attended sessions that were of interest to me and my profession. I also attended the sponsored cocktail parties and mingled and met with, and was awe-stricken by people whose names I had only ever seen in the British Medical Journal or the Lancet on papers that listed them as lead authors and researchers!

For the blogging conferences, I left my husband and children for 2-4 days, I stayed at a fancy hotel, I ate at 4 and 5 star restaurants-sometimes on my dime, sometimes on someone else's and I attended sessions that were of interest to me and my profession. I also attended the sponsored cocktail parties and mingled and met with, and was awe-stricken by people whose names I had only ever seen on Twitter or on their VERY successful blogs!

Anyone spot the MAJOR difference between these two scenarios?

Children. That's about it really. But that seems to be the crux of it. In the WS article, there is no mention of the men attending blogging conferences, no mention of the childless attendees, themselves also eating ten dollar bags of chips of the floors of hotel rooms. Nope, just the mommies, the ones not living up to some archaic notion of what a proper mother should be and do with her time (and from the implications in the article, with her husband's money as well).

Yes, I started blogging after I had children. My writing before then was of a very different kind. It was scientific and was about proposals and presentations and such. Those business trips and conferences were seen as an integral part of my job and it was expected that I attend them to keep up to date with the most current research, to keep my face and expertise in front of important clients from all over the world and to enhance my knowledge in my field.

My conundrum this past week has been this. Why is this so hard for everyone to understand about blogging conferences? Are the people who attend these conferences, YES, even the "mommy bloggers", not doing the exact same thing? Keeping up to date with the current (and VERY fast moving) pace of online publishing, getting those crucial face-to-face meetings with clients/potential partners and meeting the ever important "connectors" and "mavens" of the blogging world. And most of all, to enhance their knowledge in their chosen field of work, be it SEO, working with brands, finding writing inspiration, being a better photographer/vlogger, etc....

I made the mistake of reading the comment section of the WSJ article and what hit me the most, and what brings me back to Downton Abbey, is that, from the incredibly condescending lede, to the overall tone of the article (which, by the way, was written by a woman), the one major impression I got from it, and what I feel from a lot of these "mommy blogger", click-bait, page-view hungry articles, published mostly in old-school mainstream media outlets, is the incredible misogynistic tone taken against women and especially mothers. There is an overbearing feeling of someone reminding us to "know our proper place in the world". Of us being scolded and reminded of how to be the proper lady and the proper mother and the proper hobbyist. God forbid that we all decide, just like Lady Edith does, to use our brains and voice our opinions to a larger audience. To start businesses and be successful at them and then need to stay up to date with the world and work that we are doing through conferences and meetings.

It seems ridiculous that I have to point this out in 2013, but just like post-war 1920s in England, the times they are-a-changing people. It's a business trip. NOT a "MOMMY" anything.

End of story!!

Now, do please excuse me. I am off to brush my hair. 1, 2, 3, 4....

Natasha~