BlogHer 2008 Annual Conference

Join Lori from Weebles Wobblog, Monica Mingo, Pamela Tsigdinos and Melissa from Stirrup Queens for a frank discussion about what it’s like to realize you are not on the fast track to motherhood. These women are in different stages of dealing with infertility issues, but there is one common thread. They all want or wanted to become a mom, and have found roadblocks and detours obscuring what seems to be so easy for others. Is infertility one of the last things that nobody wants to talk about? Not in this blogging community.

 

 Standard Podcast [74:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If parenting in general can be isolating, it can be more so when raising a child with special needs. Susan Etlinger, Shannon Des Roches Rosa aka Squid Rosenberg, Kristina Chew, Jennifer Graf Groneberg and Vicki Forman are among those MommyBloggers who are blogging their experiences…and finding both a community…and a cause. Join them. Share your story. Find out how, to quote Vicki, “…to embrace and treasure what makes us all different. And the same.”

 

 MommyBlogging: Blogging About Our Children with Special Needs [74:13m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We blog about our own self-images a lot, there’s no doubt about that. But a lot of us also blog about our kids’ self-images. Our kids, at some point, become aware of their own physical attributes…and the physical attributes of other people too. Often we’re in the position of reacting to negative stuff they bring home. “You’re ugly, you’re too fat, your eyes are wrong, your color is different than your mom’s” etc.

Sometimes it’s really hard to help our kids if we don’t feel good about ourselves. Have you ever been afraid they’re actually picking up the wrong messages from your own attitudes about yourself? And how often have you wondered how to effectively counteract the messages we all receive from a society that markets the “super model” look to 9 year old girls and plastic surgery as a Sweet 16 present?

Children of all races, sizes, ages, and body types deserve to feel good about themselves: how they look, and how their bodies feel. Moderator Laurie Toby Edison will talk with Tracee Sioux, Kelly Wickham, Glennia Campbell and the collective wisdom in the room about strategies to help our kids like themselves as they are.

 

 MommyBlogging: Mirrors: Ours, the Media, Our Culture and Our Kids [71:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

While we will definitely talk about the basics of online security…and how to actually choose how much privacy you’re willing to sacrifice…we’re also going to talk about another aspect of this hot topic. When, if ever do your kids start to have a right to know that you’re blogging about them, and what you’re blogging about them? Have your feelings about blogging your children’s lives changed as they’ve gotten older? And do your feelings change your blogging? We’ll talk to bloggers on different sides of the issue: We’ll talk to Chris Jordan about the unfortunate and very real reasons she protects her privacy online. We’ll talk to Shannon Lowe, whose children are getting old enough to weigh in on what she should and should not blog about them. We’ll talk to Crystal whose kids are also old enough, and who she has blogged about in a way that actually earned her hate mail! We’ll talk to Shino Tanaka, a former police officer and current online community manager, about where danger lies and how to protect oneself. Shireen Mitchell will ringlead the conversation.

 

 MommyBlogging: Public Parenting and Privacy [59:48m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download