TOC, Preface and Intro to Motherhood Online more

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface.........................................................................................................ix How the Internet Saved My Sanity and Other Ways Life Online Shapes Modern Motherhood Michelle Moravec Foreword.....................................................................................................xi The Truth of Motherhood Online Alexandra Samuel Theoretical Perspectives Chapter One.................................................................................................2 Expectant Motherhood: How Online Communities Shape Pregnancy Michelle Moravec Chapter Two...............................................................................................23 Beyond Discussion Forums: The Transmediated Support Culture of an Online Pregnancy and Mothering Group Barbara L. Ley Chapter Three.............................................................................................45 ........................................................................................................................ Online Motherhood: A Community of Mothers Revisited Patricia Drentea and Jennifer Moren Cross Chapter Four..............................................................................................60 Threads of Dissent: Conflict in an Online Community Sarah Leavitt Chapter Five...............................................................................................73 10 Years Out: Presence and Absence in a Long-term Online Mothers’ Community Lorin Basden Arnold vi Table of Contents Case Studies Chapter Six.................................................................................................98 More than Just a Website for Young Mamas: Girl-Mom Members’ Strategies for Countering the Dominant Perception of Teen Motherhood Jenna Vinson Chapter Seven..........................................................................................117 Closing the Refrigerator: Maternal Empowerment and the MySpace Autie Mommies Denise Barnum Burgess Chapter Eight...........................................................................................136 Online Parental Uncertainty in the Experience of a Child’s Port Wine Stain Liesbeth Wiering Chapter Nine............................................................................................157 “Mommies Know Best!”: Examining Social Support and Constructions of Gender on a Parenting Discussion Board Ellen Brady Chapter Ten..............................................................................................168 The Other Side of the (Gender) Coin: Stay-At-Home Fathers’ Use of Online Discussion Groups Curtis B. Livesay Chapter Eleven.........................................................................................180 Constructions of Good Motherhood in an Online Forum for Users of Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis Michelle McGowan Chapter Twelve........................................................................................200 “Late”, “Early”, “Never”: Time, Gender and Technology in Assisted Reproduction Venetia Kantsa Chapter Thirteen......................................................................................211 Cyberspace and Contested Meanings of Adoptive Parenthood: A Case Study of Adoptive Parents of Filipino Children Todd Lindley Motherhood Online vii Chapter Fourteen......................................................................................232 Cyber-Communities and Motherhood Online: A Reflection on Transnational Adoption Peter Buzzi and Claudia Megele Blogs and Community Chapter Fifteen.........................................................................................242 Mommy Blogs: The Centrality of Community in the Performance of Online Maternity Lynne M. Webb and Brittney S. Lee Chapter Sixteen........................................................................................256 Parenting Children with Autism Online: Creating Community and Support through Blogging Marceline Thompson-Hayes Chapter Seventeen....................................................................................264 Constrained Agency: Chinese Mothers Blogging their Child Rearing Practices Yahui Zhang Chapter Eighteen......................................................................................281 Transnational Surrogacy, E-Motherhood, and Nation Building Sayantani Dasgupta and Shamita Das Dasgupta PREFACE HOW THE INTERNET SAVED MY SANITY AND OTHER WAYS LIFE ONLINE SHAPES MODERN MOTHERHOOD MICHELLE MORAVEC Sometime late in the nineties, I was seized by baby fever. In many ways it was all too predictable, last ditch effort to save a bad marriage, rapidly approaching thirty, stuck in a seemingly endless graduate school career, take your pick for the true underlying motivation. All I knew was I wanted a baby now and my then-husband just as adamantly did not. Girlfriends surrounded me with loving partners who seemed anxious to become fathers. Switching from briefs to boxers, check. Taking zinc supplements, sure. Abstaining for two days, timing intercourse to peak fertility, checking cervical mucous, whatever it took, these guys lined up eagerly. I felt alone, ashamed and abysmal. I can’t remember quite what internet-search query led me to BabyCenter.com, but there I found salvation in the form on an online bulletin board, as they were called back in the day, titled “ready to TTC, but my partner isn’t.” From the safety of my glassed-in sun porch I could vent my frustration, pour out my angst and in general spew in ways that my reticence and pride would never allow IRL. Fast-forward some years. Ph.D. obtained, first husband lost, I found myself unexpectedly, but quite happily, pregnant. I quickly rejoined BabyCenter thinking ‘MY TURN FINALLY.” Sadly at six weeks that pregnancy ended in miscarriage, yet during that brief return to BabyCenter I became intrigued with the interaction of women online. When I again got that BFP, I joined yet another “pregnant for the first time” group within an hour of POAS. Motherhood Online ix Seven years have passed. I still post daily with some of the women I met during that first pregnancy. My children have worn their handmedowns. We exchange holiday cards and Secret Santa gifts. I cook their recipes and rely on their advice. I have traveled to meet many of them. When I weaned my first child, one talked me down from the sobbing as I hid in the basement while my husband put him to bed. During my son’s difficulties in school, these women held my hand, virtually, as I anxiously awaited his daily behavior report. The members of my online mommy group have become the single greatest influence on my parenting. I speak to my mother on a daily basis, and do not lack for IRL mommy friends, but still with these women online, I have shared intimate aspects of pregnancy, childbirth, and early motherhood that no other people are privy to. Along the way we have endured deployments, deaths, divorces, new jobs, houses and relationships. We have lost members and seen social networking supplement posting to the group, but still we continue. Online I am a friend to people totally unlike my liberal, big-city, academic-feminist self. We have had our share of difficulties over politics, religion, economics, and parenting choices. Still I often liken the group to family, not to indicate the strength of the bonds, but rather the attitude we have towards one another. You know the saying, you can pick your friends but not your family? Actually, no, not in this case. My online mommy group shared an experience that will not be repeated, my first pregnancy and emerging motherhood. We may get on one another’s nerves, each prefer specific members over others, and probably roll our eyes while reading more than any of us care to admit. Still we stay together because we cannot make new friends who share that singular experience. Having a community, albeit virtual, of women who know me in that way, women who not only shaped, but also understand me intimately as a mother is too precious to discard over annoyances. I would be remiss if I did not thank my village, both virtual and in real life, which provided support over the long course of completing this manuscript. For invaluable assistance in editing I owe Melanie McBride a huge debt of gratitude. Cindy Kopp, Esther Mas, and Katrinka SomdahlSands offered extra hands and encouraging hearts. Most of all to my family, which motivates my writing about modern motherhood, you have made me a better scholar and person. This book would not exist without you. Motherhood Online explores the thousands of mommy groups that populate the web. Whether centered on region, religion, race, or some other aspect of identity, these groups are creating a new space for mommy x Preface and allowing many women to maintain a grasp, however tenuous, on sanity in this crazy-making world of modern motherhood. FOREWORD THE TRUTH OF MOTHERHOOD ONLINE ALEXANDRA SAMUEL Eight days into my life as mother, I found myself sobbing my eyes out. My midwives had sent a breastfeeding counselor to my house, and she’d delivered heartbreaking news: I wasn’t producing enough milk for my baby. While my husband drove across town to access a secret stash of prescreened donor breast milk, I collapsed under the weight of exhaustion, guilt and disappointment. I had never felt so discouraged, nor so alone. And then I logged in. BFAR – Breastfeeding After Reduction – was an online community I had discovered while preparing for my daughter’s birth. I had long known that the breast reduction I’d had at age 18 could impact my later desire to breastfeed, but as an older friend had said to me at the time, “breastfeeding is less important to being a mother than feeling good about yourself”. Now I was going to find out if she was right…and with all the expert advice on the medical and emotional benefits of nursing, I wasn’t so sure. I had only been a mom for a week, and I was already failing. As soon as I’d finished giving my daughter her first donated milk – from another, better mother – I sent my tearful update to the list: I thought I was prepared for this possibility but I had really hoped to have enough milk for the first few weeks...and while it is great to see my daughter finally satisfied after a feeding I feel so sad that our marathon feeding sessions of the past few days turn out to be a symptom of undersupply rather than just her bonding. Minutes later, the responses started pouring in. I know how hard it is to have to supplement… Even if you're prepared for the possibility, and even think it's a probability that you'll have to supplement, it's hard to accept it at first. xii Foreword I know that feeling of total disappointment at having to supplement. But first of all, take heart in knowing that there have been many moms on this list who have had to supplement....And try not to feel like just because we've all gone through that heartbreaking feeling, we're used to it. With each new baby, many of us experience the same disappointment again when having to supplement -- believe me, I sympathize with you totally...It sounds like you're doing all the right things. Keep up the great work, and congratulations! With both of my babies, this was the worst moment in the entire post partum period. Even when I was more prepared for it the second time, it was still devastating. You just have to put it behind you as a fact of life. My baby was born in May and we started supplementing when he was almost a week old. I remember how much I cried that day. I know how disappointed you feel. Just hang in there. Pretty soon, supplementing will come easier. And most important: You're not alone. This book is a journey inside the many online worlds that have given mother after mother that same essential message: You’re not alone. From general interest online communities held together by the common thread of a baby’s birth month, to special interest online communities linked by the shared experience of in vitro fertilization, teen pregnancy or raising an autistic child, the Internet offers today’s mothers new ways to connect; new ways to discover that however isolated they may feel, they are not alone. That message is more than a lifeline: it’s a revolution. As a friend of mine forewarned me when I was first expecting, “motherhood is both utterly overwhelming and completely under-stimulating”. But in a culture that deifies the self-sacrificing mother, and vilifies the self-interested one, do you want to tell the mom next door that you’re feeling overwhelmed and under-stimulated? Not when the price could be a permanent seat at the Bad Mommies’ table. But on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, which liberates you to be a bitch. Not a bitch to others – as many of these chapters recount, online mothers’ groups are quick to sanction hostility – but the impatient, imperfect bitch of a mom who uses jarred babyfood, disposable diapers and a TV-as-sitter. The mom who takes off the halo and admits to imperfection, as Arnold recounts: Motherhood Online I like that I can say things like things about sometimes disliking my kids, or being embarrassed by them, or whining about everyday minutiae, or even secrets about my marriage that I wouldn't want people in my social circles to know. xiii …or the mom who can pause to acknowledge the effort it requires to advocate for her autistic child, as quoted by Burgess: I trust that god knows what he is doing. . . . I will be a bit scuffed up, bruised up, worn out and somewhat out of breath due to being mom and challenging everyone who says “He cant” or “She wont” In the end Ill show them how wrong they all were. …or the mom admits to the truth that teen motherhood is not a catastrophe, as Vinson reports in the case of a young mother sharing: …the joy I will feel thinking of that idiot social worker, how convinced he was I could not succeed in college, and how he almost convinced me as I fill out my law school application. Online, as these stories show, you get to be the mother you actually are; the real mom you can’t be in “real” life. The idea that the Internet can support us as the mothers we actually are, rather than the mothers we’re supposed to be, is doubly subversive. If we create spaces – even virtual ones -- where mothers can be accepted as they are, it breaks the paradigm that offers mothers a binary choice between self-sacrifice or self-recrimination. And if we acknowledge that the Internet can actually be a liberating and constructive part of parenting, rather than the demon that sees Mom texting her way through the family dinner, it breaks the paradigm that offers mothers a binary choice between unplugging and being a bad mom. In challenging the increasingly popular narrative of the Internet as home-wrecker, this acknowledgement of mothering communities complicates the conversation about our online lives. For anyone grappling with the question of whether, how and how much the Internet transforms our social context, these chapters are a revelation. Forget the laundry lists that run through all the different ways the Internet has changed business, government or personal life. Instead, take a microscope to a single, foundational institution: motherhood. Peer through this lens and your ability to make declarative statements about the Internet’s social impact will quickly fall away. You’ll meet mothers who use the Internet as an organizing tool, mothers who use it as a source of information, mothers who use it for social camaraderie. You’ll xiv Foreword encounter women who have come to see themselves as part of a community, and women who have been able to discover themselves as individuals. You’ll meet Chinese bloggers, and American Facebookers. And far from feeling like you’ve traversed the full landscape of motherhood, you’ll simply awaken to its endless variety and find yourself hungry to discover even more of its online outposts. In recognizing online motherhood in all its variety and complexity, this volume thoroughly breaks the narrative of The Internet vs. The Family. That is a tale that requires a monolithic Internet, and equally, a monolithic Motherhood. Break apart the mythology of a single mothering experience, and you lose the ability to make comprehensive claims about what the Internet is doing to that experience. The Internet is making mothers harried and distracted and amused and expressive and overwhelmed and nourished and victimized and empowered. In other words, it’s doing what motherhood has always done: pushed women to the limits of their capacity and creativity, and in so doing, uncovered new capacities and new creation. These chapters break another paradigm, too. By liberating us to tell the truth about our experience as mothers – the horrifying, hysterical, scatological, miraculous truth – the Internet has opened the door, just a crack, to a new way of being a mom. If you can write a blog post today about how you don’t especially mind letting your baby cry herself to sleep, then maybe tomorrow you can tell your mother’s group – in a whispered aside – that sometimes you let your baby cry a little. If you can post a Facebook update in which you complain about the culture of overscheduling, then maybe you’ll find the strength to refuse the next extracurricular activity. If you can make a YouTube video in which you talk honestly about your fears for the world your daughter will one day inhabit, then maybe you can share those fears with her, too. And when someone asks you where you learned to be that wide-open, courageous, real mom, you can say proudly: you learned it online.