My June column on Talent Zoo, on the topic of mommy bloggers, is out a couple of days early. I call it failed, not because I think it is uninteresting (I hope it is interesting) but because I failed to fully support my initial hypothesis that the art and craft of blogging has outgrown the term “mommy blogger.”

I dislike the term. This is not the same as disliking mommy bloggers. Please read on. I feel the term has the potential to demean women. I find attaching the qualifier “mommy” or “mom” to any profession or pursuit can be inadvertently apologetic, as if to say, “I’m a mom, and I write a blog, and that’s an accomplishment.” You could take this one step further, and add, “and doing both at once requires some sacrifices in both.”

I also think there are so many outstanding writers, journalists, commentators, poets, authors, etc. out there that should be identified by their areas of expertise, not their gender and parental status. I read a lot of blogs, including some so-called mommy blogs, and there is much fine writing, analysis and commentary that stands on its own without the need for clever labels. Yes, being a mommy is one of the hardest things in the world, but so is being a daddy, a brother, a sister… I’m just not sure it’s an enduring strategy for online writing.

One example. I read Louise Brown’s marvelous Busy and Lively blog. She is a wonderful writer, and everyone, including yours truly, can learn from her smooth style and literary grace. And I hope Louise doesn’t take this the wrong way, but she writes about both the profound and the profoundly trivial, like this post on “8 things you might now know about me.” But all of it is engaging. Louise does not “identify” herself as any particular kind of blogger, or for that matter, as a social media expert, SEO guru or managing director of an Uplands grist mill. She lets her writing speak for itself.

I did a number of interviews for the mommy blogger piece via Twitter and e-mail. “Live” comments on Twitter, among my approximately 900-person sample, indicate a clear dichotomy on the topic, with, at one end of the spectrum, those who feel that the mommy blogger movement is still thriving, growing, relevant and important, and those at the other end, who openly mock and detest the idea of mommy bloggers.

I “heart” mommy bloggers and I hate mommy bloggers bumper stickers should be selling in equal amounts based on the informal survey. This is where my hypothesis fell apart. What I found as I researched the subject is that the field is indeed large, highly varied in its attitudes and its ideas of what it means to be a mommy blogger, and divided as to the larger importance of the movement and whether it will endure. From a strictly statistical standpoint, mommy blogging should grow as a trend. More women are coming online, and more are blogging. There are of course longtime mommy blogger stars, and new celebrities could come up through the ranks. (If, that is, coming up through the ranks is what they wish to do. Many are simply writing because they enjoy it, and because they enjoy connecting and sharing their experience with others.)

What do you think? Are you a mommy blogger and proud of it? Is it a noble movement, or a potentially demeaning gender classification that we have now outgrown? Please read the article, comment here, or otherwise let me know how you feel.

Many thanks to Kimber Schmahl, Mae Mason, Kristen Munson and Zoe Siskos, for their contributions to the article, and thanks to everyone else for all of the great responses to my questions.

Note: None of the mommy blogger detractors I contacted chose to be interviewed for attribution for the article. Take what you will from that.

* Al, don’t go all semantical on me. You can be an MS Word user, without being defined as an MS Word user, just as you can take your car to the car wash, without principally thinking of yourself as a car wash customer.

Tags: Kimberly Schmahl, Kristen Munson, Mae Mason, mommy blogging,, mommy bloggers, Zoe Siskos