I have an awkward admission to make: I read what are fondly known as Mommy Blogs. I’m embarrassed that I actually spend precious downtime reading these often narcissistic and sentimental odes to a Pottery Barn catalog version of life so I won’t even stoop to the level of sharing the ones that I skim—even if just once a month—because many of them embody so much navel gazing and consumerism. Let’s just chalk it up to the thirty-something-mother version of watching Saved by the Bell reruns after school. (Don’t deny it unless you’re going to admit to watching Charles in Charge instead.) Why don’t I like these online chronicles of motherhood? Let me count the ways: They commodify children. (Can you imagine having tens of thousands of people looking at your child’s mug every day?) They often take a sarcastic and demeaning tone. (Listen, I completely understand the trials of preparing meals for picky toddlers, but pulling out the big sarcasm and provocative-language guns and essentially poking fun at your offspring in a very public forum to generate sympathetic and commiserating laughs is just juvenile—and I can be a very sarcastic person. #soblessed) And lastly, these online snippets of “real life” are often viewed by their authors as tools to catapult to their fifteen minutes of fame. (Just hop on over to the Huffington Post and read the posts by mothers who are faux angry for this, that, and another reason and then watch all these posts go viral.) In short, many seem to me to be one-dimensional “soft” versions of what mothering truly encompasses; many mommy blogs present an ambience or a general feeling. So why, then, do I still read them? These blogs give me a peek into what makes my American contemporaries tick, sometimes they provide a good chuckle when I see how stylized every facet of bloggers’ children’s lives can be (even in attempts to “keep it real”), but often, it’s just fluff entertainment.