Also, I think it would help to clarify what I mean by the bad or negative stuff. I think there’s a giant list of parent things that are difficult and that get written about endlessly (and have been, by me): dirty diapers, sleep troubles, frustration because one’s child isn’t hitting a milestone, lack of sleep, teething, crying, etc. I don’t think we need more writing devoted to this stuff. I don’t write about doing the dishes, or my laundry and in some ways I think these are similar. To paraphrase Denis Leary: “Parenthood’s a bitch; get a helmet.” This from the show he was performing over ten years ago, while his wife was hospitalized in a different country and then gave birth to their son who weighed about 2 pounds. (Read Ann Leary’s An Innocent Abroad for more details on this.)

I’m not a reader of Chez Miscarriage, but from Emily’s description, it sounds as if she has a very good balance of things, and I will check it out. Dooce is one of the sites I choose not to read anymore. Yes, she has both good and bad. I think her letters to Leta are lovely, and I appreciate that she shared her struggle with post partum depression. But I’ve got my own child here to look after, and I don’t find that reading Dooce brings anything new to my life. She’s not writing about what she’s reading, or learning. She’s funny, but I want more than that. The litmus test I’m using, both for my own writing and for what I read, is whether there’s a compelling reason to make the private public–a distinction brought to my attention by the writer of Mental Multivitamin.

I guess it might just be a perspective issue, but I really do think the negative helps to enhance the posiive and that’s why I remember both, but focus more on the positive because the negative made it all the more special.

Second, I can understand your aim to not write about the hard stuff. And I’ve found myself sometimes reading your blog and wondering what you are enjoying about drake, because it always seems so hard. Yet I can also see that the ability to vent - not to a husband who is presumably also feeling the strain, and not to the child who won’t understand - can be an incredibly important outlet. Perhaps you can cope without that outlet, and I can see that you are not damning those who cannot. I wonder if you will miss the option to connect with others who are going through the same thing as you. The sense of community I see on the infertility blogs in particular is incredible and seems to be a real source of strength to those involved. It has certainly helped me put in perspective the difficulties I have been having. And I’ve been impressed with Tertia’s writing recently about how incredibly hard it is to deal with her twins, despite how long and hard the journey to having them was. She balances this need to ask for help, to tell it like it is, with the knowledge that having these babies in her life has changed her life for the better.

It seems there is one big reason for you trying to stop writing about the bad stuff - that you want to take more pleasure in the joy, which I can understand. There’s another reason that has occured to me, which fits with the NYT point about someone googling your child’s existance when they get to 16 or whatever. Leta’s life is (sort of) public. That’s quite a big step to take for your child. Now I don’t want heather to stop writing or sharing the photos of Leta, but I can see that at some point Leta may object. And for me, I’m not sure I want my life to be that public - for people I know in real life to know my inner monologue.

The more I read blogs, therefore, the more I think that what grrl has done works well. She doesn’t give any details of her life, never talks about which state she’s from, what she does for a living, etc., yet she blogs about the good times and the bad times and gets the connection and the venting without the invasion of privacy. She’s helped so many people by sharing what has happened to her, and presumably this helps her too.

Anyway, this has veered from the point of your article, so I will stop. I will look forward to hearing more of the good stuff, and hope that when you need to - because it makes your life better now and in that moment that may be more important than what people will look back on in 10 years time - you’ll share the bad stuff too.