Catherine Connors is a mother, writer and recovering academic who traded the lecture hall for the playroom and discovered that university students and preschoolers have much the same attention span. She still dips her toes into academic waters by writing the occasional scholarly article about the place of motherhood in Western philosophy, but mostly now she changes diapers and wipes noses and indulges in long reflections on whether Yo Gabba Gabba is a harbinger of the decline of western civilization. Oh, and she blogs: in addition to Bad Mother blogging at BeliefNet, she is, among other things, the author of HerBadMother.com, Managing Editor of MamaPop, moderator of Her Bad Mother’s Basement, co-founder and co-editor of WeCovet, Contributing Editor at BlogHer, and (deep breath) founder of and contributor to Canada Moms Blog. And in her spare time… oh, wait. She doesn’t have spare time. But she’s okay with that.
Three and a half years ago, I started a mommy-blog. I called it Her Bad Mother. Why I called it Her Bad Mother is a long story that I’ll tell you about some other time, but my reasoning more or less came down to this: I had a baby girl – a “her” – and I was pretty convinced that I was going to be a bad mother. And I was going to write about being a bad mother, so. The math was pretty straightforward: Her Bad Mother.
That worked out pretty well for me for about two and half years: I was a bad mother, and I blogged about it. Then I got pregnant again. With – you guessed it – another baby. Another baby who was not necessarily going to be a her. At which point, I asked myself – actually, a whole lot of people asked me – would I still think of myself as Her Bad Mother after my second child was born? Shouldn’t I call myself Their Bad Mother? And I kinda thought, well, no: Her Bad Mother isn’t just about me as a mother. It’s about me as a mother and as a writer and as a former academic and as a feminist and as an activist and as a pop-culture aficionado. It’s about a whole lot of things, only one of which is the experience of motherhood. Her Bad Mother, I realized, had taken on a life and identity of its own, beyond the mommy-blog. It wasn’t bound by the circumstances of my motherhood – I would be Her Bad Mother even if I suddenly became good – and it certainly wasn’t bound, descriptively by the number of children that I had.
But still: something was changing, something that Her Bad Mother couldn’t quite capture. My identity as a mother was changing, as was my identity as a writer. I was writing about more than just motherhood – to the extent that I recoiled, sometimes, at being called a mommy blogger – but at the same time I was feeling compelled to write more just about motherhood. And there was still that whole issue about another baby coming along. I dithered for, like, a year. Start a new blog? Expand the old one? Change the name?
Then this opportunity presented itself – to expand my blogging horizons and carve out a new space for myself as a parent blogger – an unabashed mommy blogger, even. To create a new blog as an extension and expansion of the old one. To become, in a new space, Their Bad Mother, and to write about that – the minuteia and mundanities and exaltations of being a confused and complicated and sometimes competent mother of two – while preserving my other, writerly, Her Bad Motherly identity and all the stories that attach themselves thereon.
So, welcome! I’m looking forward to this journey, and to sharing it with you.
And them.
posted May 7, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Congratulations, how exciting!
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Congrats on your new blog! I’d love to hear the “original” story of how you came up the name sometime.
Judy @MommyNews
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Wouldn’t stories attach themselves thereto, rather than thereon?
Oh, and cool about the new blog, too.
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:01 pm
WHOOT WHOOT – congratulations, more of your awesomeness to spread around.
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Fabulous~ So exciting – looking foward to keeping up with your bad mothering of THEM
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Hello! And yay, Catherine!
It’s nice to be here. I’m not seeing the world boob yet. When will that grace this page? It needs more boob! :]
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Yeah! That’s so exciting…
I’ve wanted to start a second one as well. One that the fam doesn’t know about.
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:15 pm
very cool! Looking forward to reading you here as well as everywhere else I find you. (Geez I sound like a stalker)
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Good for you, Catherine! Wishing you the best dissection.
Have found myself wanting to do something similar, but for very different reasons. While you’re all out there on your original blog, never holding back, never fearing to trudge through the mud barefoot and without hand sanitizer, I feel like I’ve been retreating.
What started out as self-expression and catharsis has slowly become somewhat of an obligation. And I don’t want that. Or need that.
And am such a shitty commenter for hogging this space with my headgarbage.
So, yay! Really great to see you expanding.
Best of luck!!!
Jo Anna
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Wait, there’s going to be some kind of boob on this page? Nice! Sign me up!
posted May 7, 2009 at 3:54 pm
How exciting! Congrats on the new blog.
posted May 7, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Congrats on the new blog!
posted May 7, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Great ! So much better (at least for us!) than quitting blogging altogether.
I’ll be happy to read you there as well !
posted May 7, 2009 at 4:38 pm
Congrats on your new venture!
I don’t know how you have the energy to do all this writing, but it’s awesome. Awe-inspiring.
posted May 7, 2009 at 7:49 pm
Welcome!
posted May 8, 2009 at 9:02 am
You are evil, for now I must add to my Blogroll. Because I don’t already spend enough time reading blogs.
Sigh.
posted May 8, 2009 at 10:13 pm
You are all of Our Bad Mother!
posted May 10, 2009 at 11:12 am
Catherine, I can barely keep up with you, how DO you do it, and do it so well?
Congrats!!!!
posted May 11, 2009 at 1:06 am
Fun new blog, HBM! Glad to see you have a place you can feel free to gush.
posted August 23, 2010 at 5:02 am
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posted September 2, 2010 at 7:17 pm
I found your site on Google and read a few of your other entires. Nice Stuff. Im looking forward to reading more from you.
I will put your site on my blogroll.
Talk Later
posted September 3, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Good stuff, It might just work, although it seems easier when you have a plan.
posted September 3, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Greets
Refreshing and very informative. i wish there were more blogs like it. Anyway, i felt it was about time i posted, I
My bro just wanted to drop you a comment to say keep up teh good work.
Goodbye
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Bye
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Laters
posted September 23, 2010 at 9:34 pm
Sounds like a plan to me
Cu Soon
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posted September 29, 2010 at 3:50 pm
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L8er
posted October 2, 2010 at 9:12 pm
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Yours Sincerly
posted October 3, 2010 at 8:26 pm
I found your site on Google Blogsearch and I and read a few of your other posts.
Talk Later
posted October 4, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Have you considered writing professionally? Like a periodical or something?
you a blog owner too.
Good Bye
posted October 4, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Have you considered writing professionally? Like a periodical or something?
Please email me if you are interested
Yours Sincerly
posted October 4, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Greetings
Good stuff, It might just work, although it seems easier when you have a plan.
I a blog owner too.
Cu Later
posted October 5, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Greets
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posted October 5, 2010 at 5:35 pm
Greetings
I am loving your posts. Found you on Twitter.