Mummy Blogs and Representations of Motherhood: “Bad Mummies” and Their Readers

Abstract

Digital technologies have opened up new environments in which the experiences of motherhood and mothering are narrated and negotiated. Studies of “mummy blogs” have explored the ways in which blogs, as social media networks, can provide solace, support, and social capital for mothers. However, research has not addressed how mothers, as readers of blogs, use the mamasphere as a cultural site through which the identities and role of motherhood, and the mother–child relationship, are socially and digitally (re)constructed. This article focuses on confessional blogging of the “bad” or “slummy” mummy: blogs that share stories of boredom, frustration, and maternal deficiency while relishing the subversive status of the “bad” mummy. Drawing on understandings of social media as a space of social surveillance and networked publics, the article argues that in framing narratives of motherhood in terms of parental failure and a desperation for gin, “bad mummy” blogs collapse social contexts in important and interesting ways. Using an example of a conflict between two mummy bloggers, the article will reflect on the ways in which the digital terrain of motherhood can both liberate and constrain: a space for mothers to express and share frustrations and seek solidarity, a space of public condemnation and judgment, and a space that poses ethical issues in the digital curation of family life.

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SI: Infancy Online
Introduction
The proliferation of online representations of motherhood
has shaped the cultural references and archetypes through
which contemporary motherhood is produced and consumed.
Mummy blogs, as a form of life writing, have emerged in the
blogosphere as an important cultural phenomenon and are a
lens through which we can reflect on contemporary construc-
tions of motherhood. Blogs have provided spaces in which
the experiences of mothering are represented, negotiated,
and resisted. By challenging and reinterpreting traditional
representations of motherhood, by giving voice to the private
realm of motherhood, and by focusing on the maternal voice,
mummy blogs, as a critical practice, enable more nuanced
articulations of maternal identities (Friedman, 2013; Lopez,
2009). As such, mummy blogs have been positioned as tools
of empowerment with the potential to democratize main-
stream media narratives.
Studies of mummy blogs have explored the ways in
which blogs, as social media networks, can provide ven-
ues for self-expression and tools for connecting with
others, creating structures of solace and support (Morrison,
2014). However, these same spaces are also sites of con-
flict where stories, identities, and practices of mothering
are contested and redefined and where understandings of
the privacy and (curated) presence of children in mummy
blogs are problematized.
A growing body of research has mapped the ways in which
the practice of blogging shapes social capital and collective
identification, but largely absent from these accounts are
understandings of the readers of the blogs and the meanings
that they draw from online accounts of motherhood. There is
a paucity of research that considers the ways in which the
everyday practices and experiences of motherhood interact
707186SMSXXX10.1177/2056305117707186Social Media + SocietyOrton-Johnson
research-article2017
University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Corresponding Author:
Kate Orton-Johnson, Sociology Department, University of Edinburgh,
2.06, 18 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LN, UK.
Email: K.orton-Johnson@ed.ac.uk
Mummy Blogs and Representations
of Motherhood: “Bad Mummies”
and Their Readers
Kate Orton-Johnson
Abstract
Digital technologies have opened up new environments in which the experiences of motherhood and mothering are narrated
and negotiated. Studies of “mummy blogs” have explored the ways in which blogs, as social media networks, can provide
solace, support, and social capital for mothers. However, research has not addressed how mothers, as readers of blogs, use
the mamasphere as a cultural site through which the identities and role of motherhood, and the mother–child relationship,
are socially and digitally (re)constructed. This article focuses on confessional blogging of the “bad” or “slummy” mummy:
blogs that share stories of boredom, frustration, and maternal deficiency while relishing the subversive status of the “bad”
mummy. Drawing on understandings of social media as a space of social surveillance and networked publics, the article argues
that in framing narratives of motherhood in terms of parental failure and a desperation for gin, “bad mummy” blogs collapse
social contexts in important and interesting ways. Using an example of a conflict between two mummy bloggers, the article
will reflect on the ways in which the digital terrain of motherhood can both liberate and constrain: a space for mothers to
express and share frustrations and seek solidarity, a space of public condemnation and judgment, and a space that poses
ethical issues in the digital curation of family life.
Keywords
mummy blogs, digital representations, social surveillance

2 Social Media + Society
with representations of motherhood online. In the same way
that Barthes (2001) argues that a text’s unity lies not in its
origin but in its destination, we can understand readers as an
important part of the ways in which mothers are culturally
and, I argue here, digitally constructed. Accordingly, this arti-
cle makes a contribution to debates around mummy blogs as
cultural representations of motherhood that shape the quotid-
ian understandings of maternal identities.
This article focuses on reader responses to confessional
blogging of the “bad” or “slummy” mummy: blogs that share
stories of boredom, frustration, and maternal deficiency
while relishing the subversive status of the bad mummy.
Given the embedded, embodied, and everyday nature of the
Internet (Hine, 2015), I draw on understandings of social
media as spaces of networked publics (boyd, 2010) and
social surveillance (Marwick, 2014) to argue that by framing
narratives of motherhood in terms of parental failure and a
desperation for wine, bad mummy blogs provide their read-
ers with an important but contradictory resource.
Using an example of reader responses to a conflict
between two mummy bloggers, the article will reflect on the
ways in which the digital terrain of motherhood can both lib-
erate and constrain: a space for mothers to express and share
frustrations and seek solidarity and at the same time a space
of public condemnation and judgment. As such, mummy
blogs can been seen as cultural sites through which the iden-
tities and roles of motherhood and the mother–child relation-
ship are socially and digitally (re)constructed.
Cultural Representations of
Motherhood
In Western culture, representations of motherhood have, his-
torically, been complex, contested, and contradictory. Research
has pointed to the ways in which beliefs and narratives about
motherhood are inscribed and mediated via a heterogeneous
range of social institutions, knowledge projects, cultural ideol-
ogies, and media platforms (Hall, 1998; Woodward, 2003). In
particular, the notion of the “natural” mother, as essential, ful-
filling, and biologically defined, has been unpacked across a
wealth of literature that has explored the social, economic, and
cultural construction(s) of motherhood and its intersections
with issues of patriarchy, class, gender, and ethnicity.
Central to these debates have been the ways in which
motherhood has been mythologized and mediated through
popular culture (Kaplan, 2013; Woodward, 2003). In particu-
lar, the myth of the natural mother percolates as a gradual,
multistage, and multimedia phenomenon (Hall, 1998). Ideals
of motherhood are normalized, nebulous, and unspoken and
serve to define socially acceptable roles that become embod-
ied in the lived experiences of women (Green, 2012).
Contemporary articulations of motherhood are no less
complex. As digital technologies open up new environments
in which the experiences of motherhood and mothering are
narrated, online spaces have also become important domains
through which stories, identities, and practices of mothering
are contested and redefined. Mummy blogs provide what fem-
inist scholars have defined as alternative spaces of resistance
(Keller, 2012). Mummy bloggers take an active role in the
construction of blogs as cultural texts and the democratizing
nature of participation in Web 2.0 environments (Jenkins,
2006) mean that mummy blogs have the potential to provide
more agentic and diverse representations of motherhood in
what has been defined as the mamasphere (Friedman, 2013).
While mummy bloggers represent a rather homogeneous and
narrow demographic in terms of ethnicity, class, and sexuality,
they are a non-normative voice that provides a more varie-
gated picture of motherhood than offline mothering materials
(O’Reilly, 2010). This is particularly interesting in the context
of resistance to narratives of the natural mother, and a sub-
genre of subversive mummy blogs has emerged that explicitly
plays with the idea of bad and good mothers, enabling us to
reconsider mainstream cultural constructions.
Representations of the “Good” and
“Bad” Mother
In their examination of representations of Western mother-
hood in the media, Douglas and Michaels (2005) point to the
unrealistic and unattainable idealization of motherhood pre-
sented in mainstream cultural narratives of hypernatalism
(Douglas & Michaels, 2005) and “new momism” (Hays,
1998). Mothers are positioned as the primary caregivers, and
successful motherhood requires relinquishing autonomy to a
child-centered and idealized view of women and children
that bears little relation to the realities of most mothers’
everyday lives (Douglas & Michaels, 2005). Central to new
momism is the notion of “intensive mothering,” a romanti-
cized and demanding ideology that emphasizes the need for
mothers to spend a great deal of time, energy, and money on
child rearing (Hays, 1998). Mothers are expected to place the
needs and desires of their child above their own and to be
satisfied and fulfilled by this role (Lee, 1997).
Aligned with debates about new momism and intensive
mothering are the so-called “mummy wars” that divide stay at
home mothers and working mothers into oversimplified rival
categories (Green, 2012; Lopez, 2009; Peskowitz, 2005). Here,
ideologies about maternal selflessness conflict with Western
work-centered cultures resulting in a lose-lose situation for
women who are emotionally, economically, and structurally
placed between opposing ideological positions.1 This ignores
the diversity of mothers and their social contexts, creating
oppositional groupings to be compared and judged.
Issues of judgment and comparison are also fore-fronted
in contemporary debates that have explored the construction
of “yummy” and “slummy” mummies as social archetypes
(Littler, 2013). The yummy mummy, as a cultural descriptor,
is used in popular discourse to symbolize a type of mother

Orton-Johnson 3
who is sexually attractive and well groomed, bringing glam-
our, attractiveness, and mother together in ways that create
new sets of practices and cultural scripts that mothers can
aspire to (Goodwin & Huppatz, 2010). With an emphasis on
aesthetics, the yummy mummy represents the attainment of
an idealized standard of looks and sexuality with practices of
mothering mediated through conspicuous consumption
(O’Donohoe, 2006).
In contrast, the slummy mummy is perceived as having
“let herself go” and is excessive, slothful, and unfeminine
(Goodwin & Huppatz, 2010, p. 85). Douglas and Michaels
(2005, p. 20) note that, traditionally, media representations of
the “bad” mother tend to be African American women who
disproportionately feature in stories about crack babies and
single, teen, or welfare mothers. The slummy mummy is not
constructed as morally bad in this sense; rather, in lacking a
manicure, carrying baby weight, and struggling to balance
work and children, they are failing to achieve the standards
of the yummy mummy, but, importantly, are still revalidating
them as a value system (Littler, 2013).
There are clear enactments of class boundaries and social
capital in this labeling, and the archetypes of yummy and
slummy mummy make moral and aesthetic judgments and
distinctions. However, what is also at stake is an important
shift away from narratives of intensive mothering that
emphasize maternal self-sacrifice. In prioritizing the indi-
vidualizing tendencies of a neoliberal model of desirable
maternal femininity (Littler, 2013, p. 228), the yummy
mummy represents a mother figure that has an identity that is
not subordinate to her child. Similarly, in failing to meet
these standards, the slummy mummy is also forefronting an
identity outside that of “just” mother.
While literature around intensive parenting, new momism,
mummy wars, and contemporary mother identities points to
conflict around narratives of motherhood, it is important to
remember that feminism has a long history of deconstructing
media discourses (Hall, 1998). What is important in these
debates is the role of the media in presenting stories of moth-
erhood that transmit norms and values that come to be seen
as natural rather than socially, economically, historically,
and, I argue here, technologically constructed.
Mummy Blogs and the Digital
Construction of Motherhood
Mummy blogs provide us with new ways of thinking about
the cultural construction of the identity of mother and can
challenge mainstream representations of motherhood (Lopez,
2009). Mummy blogs, in documenting family life and in
sharing experiences of motherhood, expose stories that, as a
collective, have the potential to change deeply normative
understandings of the identity of mother (Friedman, 2013).
Controversy about the nature of the mamasphere has
dominated the emerging literature in this field, with “mummy
blogs” seen as a label that both complements and demeans
(Lopez, 2009). They have been hailed as sites of female
activism and rebellion in making the personal political and in
making visible diverse, alternative, and candid narratives of
motherhood (Petersen, 2015). However, they also reflect the
gender politics conferred by the identity of mother and
invoke well-established social and cultural judgments about
mothers as “apron-clad sycophants to their tiny sovereigns”
(Friedman & Calixte, 2011, p. 25).
What is not in question are the ways in which mummy
blogs have created a wider public sphere in which mother-
hood is negotiated. Mummy blogs explore diverse represen-
tations of motherhood away from the social mores and
expectations of face-to-face parenting culture and the persis-
tence of cultural wars about women’s roles in the home and
at work (Nelson, 2010; Schoenebeck, 2013). In exposing
mainstream media myths of motherhood, they have created
digital social networks that provide solace, support, and
social capital for mothers at a time of identify transformation
(Friedman, 2013; Lopez, 2009; Madge & O’Connor, 2006;
Moravec, 2011).
While much of the literature surrounding mummy blogs
has emphasized the value of self-expression and collective
identification for the blogger, less attention has been paid to
the ways in which diverse representations of motherhood
function for readers of blogs. Beyond the recognition that
readers are able to eavesdrop on millions of mothers’ experi-
ences (Friedman, 2013), the impact of blogs and digital nar-
ratives of motherhood on the lived experience of mothers has
largely been rendered invisible. This is consistent with the
blogging literature more broadly where relatively little
research has examined the readers of blogs (Baumer,
Sueyoshi, & Tomlinson, 2011).
This is an important omission. The mamasphere com-
prises the visible voices of bloggers and commentators but is
also made up of readers who interact with and engage with
the blogs in their own (re)constructions and (re)productions
of mothering. While mummy bloggers construct versions of
their own motherhood, readers, in turn, reinterpret these con-
structions in reflections on their own mothering practices
(Powell, 2010). It is these reader understandings and their
implications for mummy blogs that this article focuses on.
Methodology
To explore the ways in which mummy blogs are interpreted by
their readers, the analysis presented here draws on data from a
project on online representations of motherhood. Interviews
were conducted with 32 mothers who regularly read mummy
blogs. Interviews were conducted face-to-face and via Skype,
and all of the respondents participated in at least two inter-
views lasting around 45 min. The interviews included reading
breaks where respondents directed me to particular blogs or
blog posts that they wanted to discuss and the interviews were

4 Social Media + Society
frequently followed up by email exchanges with respondents
sending links to blogs or posts that they thought I would find
interesting or relevant.
Interviews were preceded by an exchange of emails and
messages across a range of media, for example, via Facebook
groups and messenger apps and through threaded comments
on blog posts. This facilitated and accelerated contact and
rapport (Iacono, Symonds, & Brown, 2016).
All of the respondents were between the ages 28 and
45 years, White, and based in the United Kingdom, the
United States, and Australia. In part, this reflects the fact that
White, married, heterosexual women dominate the voices of
the mamasphere, but despite the homogeneity and limita-
tions of this sample, in line with Lopez (2009), I argue that
this at least provides a starting point for discussions about
representations of motherhood in the blogosphere.
Interviews were transcribed and coded in NVivo using
grounded theory techniques of open coding and memoing
(Strauss & Corbin, 1990). As the data were collected over a
period of 2 years (2014–2016), each coding frame was
guided by preliminary reviews of the data and was developed
and refined inductively.
A dominant theme emerging from the interviews was
the importance of humor in blogs. The most commonly
read and popular type of blog among my sample was
funny and confessional in tone, characterized by narra-
tives of maternal failing, self-depreciation, and stories of
embarrassing or horrible motherhood experiences. The
appeal of an authentic and “real” presentation of mother-
hood was emphasized by respondents, and this led to an
analytical focus on subversive mummy blogs that use sar-
casm and facetiousness. As an illustrative example, this
article draws on a set of blog posts that typify some of the
key issues around the construction of motherhood in blogs
and how they are understood and navigated by their read-
ers. This specific example was selected as 28 of the
women interviewed referred to this instance and directed
me to these particular posts. They are interesting in three
key ways: (1) they illustrate the interconnected nature of
the mamasphere and challenge the narratives of mummy
blogs as sites of solidarity, (2) they play with ideas about
the identities of good and bad mothers, and (3) they raise
important questions about the privacy, presence, and sta-
tus of children as curated by their mothers.
“You’re Kind of a Bitch of a Mom
Blogger”
“Eeh bah Mum” is a blog written by Kirsty Smith, a 40-year-
old married, White British woman with two children. The
blog has been Blog of the Day and Blog of the Week on UK
parenting websites Mumsnet and Netmums as well as a Tots
100 “Good Read.”2 It is nominated in the “Brilliance in
Blogging”3 best writing category 2016, and the author
published a book from the blog, How to Have a Baby and
Not Lose Your Shit in 2015.
The posts are humorous in tone, informal, and often self-
depreciating in reflecting on the challenges of parenting.
Many of the interview respondents named this blog as a reg-
ular and favorite read and cited it as a celebration and recog-
nition of the challenges and complexities of motherhood.
Indicative posts include “Baby led weaning—how to deco-
rate with Weetabix,” “Is my son a Dick?,” and “Shit they
don’t tell you about starting school.” The example I am
drawing on for the purpose of this discussion is the post “To
the lady who called me a bitch,” in which Smith writes,
I understand that my attitude to parenting is not shared by
everyone . . . but I have to admit I was a bit disturbed to discover
I was the main feature of a blog post titled “You’re Kind of a
Bitch of a Mom Blogger” which I read whilst stuck at home with
two sick children. Fun times!
The classic response would be to say “Hey lady you called me a
bitch that kind of makes you a bitch too!” but I don’t know
anything about this lady—she might be going through a tough
time, maybe she’d been up all night with two sick children or
perhaps she was just really, really struggling to find interesting
things to write about in her blog.
But the main reason I’m not going to call her a bitch is because
I just don’t think it’s a nice thing to do. Either in real life or on
the Internet which is also part of real life. (Eeh Bah Mum, 2015)
To contextualize this post, Eeh Bah Mum writer Kirsty
Smith had been a guest blogger on an American parenting
website “Scary Mummy.” Scary Mummy started in 2008 and
defines itself as an online parenting community emphasizing
that “Parenting doesn’t have to be perfect.” Now acquired by
media group Some Spider, it hosts writing from guest bloggers
alongside parenting and lifestyle articles and a confessional
section where one can anonymously post frustrations and
anecdotes. In her guest post “‘Me Time’ is bullshit once you’re
a mother” (Smith, 2014), Eeh Bah Mum writes about the ways
in which “me time” changes once you have children:
Before I had children, I used to go to the hairdressers. This was
known as “getting a haircut.” Now, I am a parent and I still go to
the hairdressers, but this is considered “me time.” It’s essentially
the same thing, but now the act of hair shortening is supposed to
be some sort of treat . . . In Britain, we love reality shows like
The Only Way Is Essex . . . which feature young, single people
making terrible life decisions . . . The stars of these shows need
“me” time to reflect on the many ways they have been wronged,
told off, or generally “disrespected.” They can then use this time
to arrange nights out where they can throw drinks in other
people’s faces which is apparently the best way to regain respect
should you ever find yourself being told off or disrespected.
I fear for these people when they have children.

Orton-Johnson 5
Being a parent involves being told off and disrespected on an
hourly basis. I have tried throwing drinks in my children’s faces,
but it is simply a waste of pinot noir.
So, as far as I’m concerned, as a mom you can stick your “me”
time where I stick my children’s art work—in the recycling bin.
(Eeh Bah Mum, 2015)
In turn, this post was blogged about by US blogger Jessica
Gottlieb, a married mother of two living in Los Angeles. Her
blog was listed for 2 years as one of the Top 50 Mom Bloggers
by online magazine Babble, and she was named a Power
Mom by Nielson in 2008 and 2009 in their compilation of
influential voices in the blogosphere based on a metric of
blog posts and comments.4 In response to Smith’s “me time”
post, Gottlieb blogged a post entitled “You’re Kind of a Bitch
of a Mom Blogger”:
I haven’t read Scary Mummy since it was a one woman website
and I knew it was raw, who doesn’t like raw? I didn’t know that
it was for bad mothers . . . the kind of mothers who really do
need some parenting classes, some boundaries and maybe a chat
with their own families.
For many paragraphs this was a cute and clever and relatable
post and then this happened [she relates the pinot noir comment]
I have read and reread those sentences a couple of times but still
my stomach sinks and there’s ringing in my ears. Who thinks
this? Who does this? I understand the need to be outrageous, it’s
how bloggers get page views or clicks. I understand hyperbole.
I understand leaping straight to the ridiculous because you have
little kids and little sleep and you feel like you’ve lost yourself
and you want to be funny. This is not funny. If you’re being
disrespected every hour other things are going on . . . If you feel
like throwing things at your children or if you feel like the image
of someone throwing drinks in the faces of children (anybody
really) is funny please see a therapist.
There is no part of me that is exaggerating. What you are
experiencing is not normal parental behavior and you need help.
(GottLieb, 2015)
Gottlieb goes on to say that she admires Eeh Bah Mums blog
and likes to get a second opinion when she is being critical of
another parenting blog to ensure she has not misinterpreted any-
thing. She quotes the second opinion received from her friend:
I asked my friend Heather Spohr5 what she thought of the
posts . . . more than once she’s kept me in check. Here’s what
she had to say:
“Parenting little kids is a hard job. It’s wonderful that we can
blog about the harder parts of parenting and get instant support
and camaraderie. What I don’t understand is the name calling,
or writing the things we’d never in a million years say to our
children’s faces, the names we’d never tolerate anyone else
calling them. Hyperbole is tempting but it comes at a price.
The internet is forever—in ten years, when their kids find
these posts and read the names their parents called them, I
doubt they’ll say, ‘It’s okay, Mom. I’m sure it got you a lot of
pageviews’ . . . If I had a friend who was writing about her son
being a dick I’d end the friendship.
Your one year old baby isn’t a dick but you’re kind of a bitch.
Stop it.” (GottLieb, 2015)
In her response to Gottlieb, Smith posted on her own Eeh
Bah Mum blog drawing very explicitly on narratives of
friendship and support:
If I had a friend who was writing about her son being a dick I’d
pop round with biscuits (that’s cookies to you Jess) and a
shoulder to cry on.
I wouldn’t write a reply online suggesting she’s a bad mother who
shouldn’t be left alone with children because although I’m totally
kind of a bitch I’m also all about supporting my sisters . . .
There is one thing Jessica wrote that I did find offensive, it’s in
her last line:
“Your one year old baby isn’t a dick but you’re kind of a bitch.
Stop it.”
Jessica I’ll take being called a bitch and a bad mother but I’m afraid
I’m not going to stop it. I love that blogging is giving mothers a
voice even if it is not a voice I agree with. (Eeh Bah Mum, 2015)
Both sets of blog posts were followed by debates occur-
ring through the comments sections which discussed, with
vary degrees of civilly, cultural differences in humor and par-
enting, the etiquette of blogging about other blogs, and the
ethics of making judgments about other parenting styles. The
commenters, in tracing the interaction across the two blogs,
cross-reference each blog in support or condemnation of the
bloggers and their posts.
Discussion of this series of posts and the resulting debate
in the comments sections of the blogs evoked strong reac-
tions from my respondents, and the example poses interest-
ing questions about the nature of identity and storytelling in
a digital era. What is of analytical interest in the context of
this article are the ways in which the readers of these blogs
understood and navigated the conflict between the blogs.
How does the mamasphere function for readers when the
sharing of frustrations also becomes a space of public con-
demnation, judgment, and surveillance?
Mummy Blogs and Social Surveillance
Blog communities, as with other technically mediated com-
munities, are characterized by watching and an awareness of
being watched (Marwick, 2012, p. 379).

6 Social Media + Society
While the role of technologies in surveillance has been
well documented at a macro level, we also need to reflect
critically on the ways in which social surveillance has cre-
ated a set of practices through which surveillance of and
between individuals is digitized and normalized through
social media (Marwick, 2012, p. 379). This form of surveil-
lance has been conceptualized as a collapse of context for
social media users, who rely on an imagined audience (Litt &
Hargittai, 2016) to manage their interactions with invisible,
heterogeneous, and potentially large populations (boyd,
2010). For the respondents, as readers of mummy blogs,
this social surveillance was explicitly discussed and highly
valued. The ability to find out intimate, behind-the-scenes
details about others’ parenting, that they perceived as honest
and open, was the primary reason for following subversive
non-normative mummy blogs:
It’s not a view you get anywhere else and it brings me joy and
relief as a reader and I’m grateful that people are putting
themselves on the line like that. (Helen)6
Readers described “stalking” or “spying” on other moth-
ers via their blogs, despite the blogs being in the public
domain. For the readers, the intimacy and detail of the blogs
made reading them feel like permitted surveillance. This is a
domestication of surveillance practices (Marwick, 2012) that
has interesting implications for the role of mummy blogs in
the cultural construction of motherhood. If the mamasphere
is a space in which different versions of motherhood can be
articulated, and traditional narratives of motherhood resisted,
then the fact that social surveillance acts as a form of judg-
ment problematizes a space that has purportedly democra-
tized and diversified representations of motherhood. For
Helen, this is articulated in terms of risk and mothers “put-
ting themselves on the line” while other respondents voiced
frustration at the ways in which the context collapse of social
media left mummy bloggers open to the kinds of criticisms
aimed at Eeh Bah Mum:
Of course it’s inevitable that there is going to be flaming,
especially if someone is saying the kinds of things [about
motherhood] that Eh Bah Mum does, not that long ago you
would only admit that to your closest friend. But it’s also
exhausting that in the one place where people can open up and
talk about being a mother it comes down to criticism and
misunderstanding, where is the mother solidarity? As a reader it
makes me sad. (Anna)
The readers of the blogs are responding to the social sur-
veillance that bloggers open themselves up to with concern
and fear that these kinds of bloggers will be alienated by the
judgments from other bloggers in the mamasphere and by the
comments and responses from other mothers:
It’s [Eh Bah Mum] a blog I read a lot, always dry, very well
observed, I’m staggered that someone would misunderstand
this. It kind of makes me glad that I’m not putting myself out
there [by blogging] and sad that we can’t be more supportive of
difference. I love to be able to read things like this and fear these
voices will be gone if they are shouted down. (Louisa)
This is important because of the power that Marwick
(2012) suggests social surveillance has: a power that exists in
mundane day-to-day interactions, that flows through social
relationships, and that takes place between individuals (p.
382). Citing gender norms as an example, Marwick (2012)
argues that they are determined through interpersonal
moments in and through which masculinity and femininity
are reinforced, policed, or resisted (p. 383). Similarly, the
power of mummy blogs to challenge, subvert, and resist
mainstream narratives of motherhood is, for readers, under-
mined by the kind of social surveillance exemplified by the
exchange between Eeh Bah Mum and Jessica Gottlieb. Here,
the power of acts of social surveillance, between blogs and
between readers and bloggers is meaningful. Mummy blogs
monitor each other and readers monitor the blogs. This kind
of mutual social surveillance creates an internalizing gaze
that formulates what is normal, appropriate, and acceptable
in that community. If we conceptualize mummy blogs as a
community in which norms emerge within and between
blogs that represents one level of social surveillance. The
value of considering readers as participants, also actively
engaged in the mamasphere, is in understanding a second
level of social surveillance that goes beyond establishing
norms for online behavior. Here, readers are active in using
their reflections on blogs to (re)constitute norms and the lim-
its of acceptability in offline mothering practices:
You read [blogs] and it gives different way of thinking about
mothering than the usual advice that you get coming at you from
everywhere and everyone. You think—oh ok—I do that too and
that’s ok. Sigh of relief. Of course people have different opinions
but [blogs] are somewhere where we can be honest and get a
whole load of different ideas . . . as a reader, if there is this
battleground between blogs and someone is calling someone a
bitch and telling them to stop blogging then it kind of undermines
the whole idea of a different kind of message. I feel undermined
in what I’m doing. (Laura)
Blogs are important sites through which cultural scripts of
good and bad mother are resisted and interpreted. The con-
text collapse and surveillance between individuals, charac-
teristic of social media, became problematic for readers
when the surveillance and conflict between bloggers resulted
in the experiences articulated in the blogs being undermined,
flamed, or challenged. Readers used blogs for reassurance
and to help them manage often seemingly incompatible iden-
tity expectations, but this reader agency was challenged
when mothers who did not conform faced negative judgment
or even harassment from other users.
While Web 2.0 spaces have long been conceptualized and
experienced as overlapping ecosystems in which information

Orton-Johnson 7
is shared and produced and in which participants expect and
desire to be watched and judged (Marwick, 2012, p. 380), the
focus has been on “active” users of social media that engage
in posting and public display. But these acts of surveillance
also play out among readers of blogs who feel invested in the
bloggers they follow and who are both surveying the prac-
tices of the bloggers and surveying the relationships and
interconnections between bloggers:
It makes me think sometimes that maybe I shouldn’t be paying
any attention or getting confidence from some of the darker mum
blogs that seem honest and true and then that just makes me feel
alienated from reading. You assume that people reading these
kinds of blogs are going to be on the same page, tired, looking for
some humour about motherhood, linking from some other blog
with the same kind of tone. Then you look at the comments and
friction and realise that we’re not a bunch of readers sharing any
kind of solidarity and it becomes unpleasant. (Anna)
The interconnected space of Web 2.0 means readers fol-
low blogs and comments and the social surveillance occur-
ring creates a network in and through which bloggers can
monitor and judge. For readers, the ability of bloggers to
draw on this wider community, in condemnation, again
undermined their sense of solidarity and engagement with
the mamasphere. For example, referring to Gottlieb asking
her friend Heather Spohr what she thought of the posts, one
respondent commented as follows:
The idea that a grown woman is blogging “my friend agrees
with me too” feels almost like some clique closing ranks in the
most public and horrible way. What is the point of blogs that
provoke if we’re just going to fall back on the same old
judgements of other mothers? (Nadia)
The kinds of exchanges exemplified in the Eeh Bah Mum/
Gottlieb example demonstrate how inter-blog social surveil-
lance challenges readers’ perceptions of the blog as both a com-
forting and provocative voice. This has important implications.
While the idea that people of relatively equal power are watch-
ing each other online and acting on the information they find is
not a new one (Marwick, 2012), the replicable, persistent,
searchable, and scalable nature of digital information has
important implications for a second and somewhat contradic-
tory theme that emerged from the analysis. This theme relates
to privacy, the ethics of performing motherhood online, and the
implications of the presence of children in blogs.
Privacy, Performance, and Digital
Memory
In Gottlieb’s blog post, fellow blogger Spohr states, “The
internet is forever—in ten years, when their kids find these
posts and read the names their parents called them, I doubt
they’ll say, ‘It’s okay, Mom. I’m sure it got you a lot of
pageviews’” (GottLieb, 2015). My respondents, in discussion
of these kinds of privacy concerns, articulated an important
tension. Bad mummy blogs, in voicing less normative aspects
of motherhood, provide readers with a sense of solidarity and
relief, but at the same time readers feel torn by the digital vis-
ibility of these articulations. Social surveillance simultane-
ously opens up new representations of motherhood that readers
value and embrace and raises concerns about privacy, the
nature of surveillance, and the contradictory ethics of these
kinds of representations:
I get that they are playing to the role they have created, the
acerbic wit and the shock factor, but even while we get this as
readers you have to wonder how it will be taken by other
audiences—it’s hard to say, “what if their children read this”
without sounding just like the hysterical commentators that
condemn them, but it has to be considered. (Katherine)
Respondents expressed conflicting feelings about the
value and importance, for mothers and readers, of honest,
raw, and reflexive presentations and performances of
motherhood and how these may fit with an unknown
future digital footprint and a perceived lack of agency and
choice for the children featured. The social surveillance
that they benefit from as readers is at the same time a sur-
veillance that prompted misgivings about the visible and
public nature of social media. In this sense, readers are
concerned by what Kumar and Schoenebeck (2015) define
as the responsibility of parents, as privacy stewards, to
decide what is appropriate to share about their children
online, a stewardship complicated by a lack of audience
control and boundary turbulence (Petronio, 2002):
It’s a double-edged sword. I think what they are doing is great,
to find relief, laugh, recognise myself. But I think that loss of
control over where your story goes and who talks about you is
scary and there is no way I would open myself or my family up
to that, I would be mortified if someone called me a bitch mom
online and that was public and forever there . . . for my kids to
see. I struggle with the fact that something so private is being
made so public without really knowing what that means and
how can we know, how can we decide what is ok when even
mummy bloggers can’t agree on what is ok to post? (Laura)
This plays into long-standing debates about the rela-
tionship between mother and child and the importance
placed on the self-sacrifice inherent in the mother identity
(Morrison, 2011). By blogging, mothers are giving them-
selves and their readers a voice, but concerns about poten-
tial harm to a child or the mother–child relationship
collapses this voice back into narratives of acceptable
conduct for a “good” mother.
So, contradictory ideas about liberation are coupled with
uncertainty about the nature of online data and the implica-
tions of making family life and children visible. For readers,
the complex ethics of this further frustrates feelings about the
judgments embedded in practices of social surveillance:

8 Social Media + Society
Who knows if the internet is forever? And who knows if this
child will even care. It frustrates me because for once here is
someone that is openly talking about being a parent, and what
happens? You get the whole privacy thing to mask the fact they
are just judging other mothers and how they use blogs to express
themselves. (Simone)
In defaulting to critiques and debates about privacy and
the rights of the child, the readers felt that the bloggers they
engage with may be denied the space in which freedom of
expression could have the opportunity to democratize and
open up debates about the nature of motherhood. The readers
also recognized and highlighted the inconsistency and
hypocrisy of these ethical judgments and pointed to the lack
of ethical concern about mainstream, culturally acceptable
representations of good motherhood online:
In a sea of social media where everything is presented as perfect,
pictures of lovely family events and wholesome family
mealtimes, no one cares about privacy there—but mention a
tired parent and a glass of wine and suddenly being online is
going to damage your child and family? (Jessica)
Leaver (2015) argues that the ways in which children are
published online has been largely absent from literature
around social media. Much research has focused on the prac-
tices and risks of young people’s online presence (Livingstone
& Helsper, 2010), but there has been little attention paid to
the implications of parents sharing personal information
about their children online (Ammari, Kumar, Lampe, &
Schoenebeck, 2015).
Blogs complicate ideas of child privacy by providing
spaces for mothers to foreground their identity as an indi-
vidual rather than “just” a mother (Gibson & Hanson, 2013;
Kumar & Schoenebeck, 2015). In challenging mainstream
narratives of the good mother, bad mummy blogs face cri-
tiques that they are curating their children in ways that may
be problematic, undesirable, or unethical. Readers want to
hear stories of frustration and failure and welcome blogs as
spaces in which these stories can be told. At the same time, in
reflecting on the kinds of conflict outlined in the example
above, they fear that the public nature of these narratives and
the implications of these (future) publics may not be ethi-
cally worth their emancipatory potential.
In this sense, the contradictions experienced by readers of
these mummy blogs as they navigate issues of privacy and
agency are exemplars of the transition and flux occurring in
our understandings of contemporary privacy in networked
publics (boyd, 2010).
Conclusion: The Meaning of Mummy
Blogs?
In the context of readers of mummy blogs, the concepts of
social surveillance and networked publics enable us to think
about blogs as spaces in which the surveillance occurring of
and between individuals creates both tension and relief.
Rather than focusing on speaking to and managing invisible
audiences, networked publics, and collapsed contexts (boyd,
2010; Marwick, 2012, 2014), a focus on readers makes visi-
ble the practical ways that networked media is used.
Readers monitor voices that they find comforting and pro-
vocative and value blogs as a foil through which to reflect on
their own mothering practices. The subversive humor
employed in the blogs blurs public and private boundaries
for readers and makes visible shared foibles and failings. At
the same time, readers feel uncomfortable about the public,
networked, and exposed nature of these voices and feel
undermined when they are challenged. Humor can serve as a
unique key for understanding social and cultural processes
(Shifman, 2007), and the misunderstanding of humor, as out-
lined in the example here, points to the ways in which
mummy blogs represent a conflicted digital terrain where
identities of motherhood are negotiated and navigated.
While much of the scholarly focus on mummy blog-
ging has been on the blogger themselves and the perfor-
mative benefits of digital life writing, it is also important
to include the readers of these blogs as part of the mama-
sphere. Blogs are part of a wider multimedia and multi-
modal landscape, and, as Hine (2015) argues, being online
occurs alongside and complements other ways of being
and acting in the world. The ways in which we interact
with the Internet are embedded in multiple frames of
meaning, motherhood being one. As such, readers of
blogs also experience the kinds of transformative impacts
and effects that have been shown by research to shape and
define bloggers identities as mothers.
Focusing on the ways in which readers use blogs to inter-
pret and navigate their own experiences points to the ways in
which mothers actively engage with stories of motherhood in
contextualizing their own experiences and understandings of
their own maternal identity. Instances of conflict, as in the
Eeh Bah Mum/Gottlieb example, highlight the tensions
and contradictions inherent in the use of blogs as a space
for bloggers and readers to navigate the uncertainties of
motherhood.
While blogs are commonly positioned as potentially
transformative spaces for new articulations of mother-
hood, the tensions expressed by the readers suggest that
they may in fact serve as another platform in which articu-
lations and struggles around long-held normative ideas
about the nature, identity, and role of motherhood are being
reinforced and reified.
This is particularly important in our emerging under-
standings of the ethics and implications of the presence of
infants in online networks and the potential consequences
of the digital curation of family life. If blogging is a space
in which mothers can resist mainstream narratives of mate-
rial sacrifice, how do concerns over privacy and rights of
deletion for children impact the emancipatory potential of
these platforms? The complexities and implications of a

Orton-Johnson 9
searchable cultural memory (Jones, 2016) are unknown,
and, as subjects of blogs, children may have little power or
participation in their digital identity. Given the potential
for scalability, visibility, and persistence in digital spaces
(boyd, 2010), does the cathartic need for mothers to express
and engage with new maternal identities conflict with the
right of their infants to decide on and define their own
online presence and identity?
Mummy blogs represent a contradictory but important
middle ground between structural and cultural representa-
tions of motherhood and between interpersonal relationships
and individual choice. They also represent spaces of ethical
uncertainty and risk. In making visible and sharing the messy
reality of motherhood, bad mummy blogs have shaped what
is acceptable to divulge in a networked public. In engaging
with and supporting these narratives, their readers are also
implicated and complicit.
To understand contemporary digital mediations of moth-
erhood and the mother–child relationship, these kinds of
boundary and ethical issues that underpin mummy blogs
need our critical attention.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. It is important to acknowledge that this refers to a homogeniz-
ing Western bias that does not recognize the intersections of
class, ethnicity, and structural inequalities that shape the expe-
rience of mothering.
2. Tots 100 is a network hosting 8,500 UK parent blogs.
3. The Brilliance in Blogging (BiBs) awards are hosted on the
website BritMums which is a United Kingdom’s collective
of lifestyle bloggers that runs an annual social media awards
program.
4. http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/social-
media-comes-of-age-blackshaw-reflects-on-marketing-and-
the-web-in-2008/ and http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/
wp-content/uploads/2009/05/nielsen_powermoms.pdf.
5. Mummy blogger and author of blog The Spohrs Are multiply-
ing, http://thespohrsaremultiplying.com/.
6. Respondent pseudonyms are used throughout.
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Author Biography
Kate Orton-Johnson (PhD, University of Surrey) is a senior lecturer
in Sociology in the School of Social and Political Science and the
University of Edinburgh. Her research interests are in Digital
Sociology with a focus on Digital Culture and Digital leisure.