The New York Times ran an article on the recent Blogher ’08 conference in San Francisco*. Although the article references female bloggers who do not write about home-making and lactating exclusively (try not at all), they seem stuck on the idea that women who blog blog about being moms.

Although I occasionally refer to what I do here as “mommy blogging”, I am not being serious when I do so. I really can’t tell you what kind of blogger I am because I tend to write about whatever is upper-most on my mind at the moment. This ranges from sex to writing to politics to feminism to body image to the ever popular – blog post about nothing.

I admire niche blogging. I wish I could pick a topic and stick to it like glue but I am far too random and frankly, I would have tired of blogging quickly had I done something like that. So if anyone is looking to me for the minutia of motherhood, you are in the wrong neck of the blogosphere.

I am little incensed for those who are writing about parenting – that’s what it is by the way – PARENTING, and the last I heard both genders engage in the act of parenting and blogging about it. The reason I am angry is that “mommy blogger” almost seems like a pejorative. A dismissal. As though a parent couldn’t have opinions on the state of the nation or world or environment. Like only a non-parent can accurately assess the economy or give tech advice.

I would claim the label with pride, if that is what I was, were it not for the snide way in which it is used so often. Like the phrase “just a housewife”, it’s meant to point out a person of little significance. Someone who isn’t a real writer and doesn’t have anything to do but gaze at the baby’s navel and then tell us all about it.

Perhaps I am over-reacting, but most of the women whose work I read via blogs are far more varied in interest than the NYT’s seems to think. We are not the sum total of our uterine output. In fact, parenthood isn’t exclusively about the female half anyway.

*I discovered this via Pundit Mom.