A Young Man’s Game and a Mom’s Too
April 6, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Parenting, Technology, Weblogs
“Matt Buchanan shows blogs may be a young man’s game,” says the New York Times in an article entitled In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop.
Only a “young man’s game”?—-not if you follow blogs about autism (and, recently, one particular blogger on vaccines and science). Not only is it 24/7; you’ve got to have some sense of things scientific, medical, educational, legal, and (in the case of this blog) something about being a mom.
(Aren’t moms the original multitaskers, another mother asked me last week, a baby in one arm, a spoon to stir with in the other, phone on her shoulder and shutting a draw with her hip, and one foot kicking the garbage can out of the way?)
Jeff Stimpson
Jill Cornfield
I actually thought of you when I read this article last night. I don’t know how you create so much content when I have a hard enough time (with no children) teaching and working.
Your blog is the only one I have set to an RSS feed, and I still can’t keep up.
I wonder if the therapeutic nature of this blog and similar ones is what gives some people the energy? Even when I am stressed and non-verbal, I find writing helps.
That Times article tells a sad tale — blog-cum-rat-race. Even if you don’t kill yourself blogging that way, it sounds like a good way to kill the pleasure of writing.
Thanks for linking to my latest. We live in interesting times, don’t we?
@Kathleen Seidel,
Interesting times and they keep one (me, at least) awake and alert!
When I got started with all of this, and got a negative response elsewhere on the web, my “blog mentress” made it clear, it meant I was making an impact……I think her very right about Neurodiversity.com.
@C.S. Wyatt,
It’s definitely therapeutic. The writing just comes so to speak—-have to say, writing here has made me think more and more of my grandmother and great aunt who had many children each, full-time job(s), made all the lunches and woke up before everyone else to make breakfast——
I guess I should say, I read the NYT article last night just after seeing it come up…
I don’t know where you get all the energy. I think that you do have a positive impact.
Blogging is therapeutic: that’s why I started writing and reading blogs, and the main reason I continue.
Thought I’d toss this out there: if someone has an autism-related blog I should include on a public feed for students to read, let me know. Right now, this is *the* blog I include. My other feeds are from academic journals and Medical News Today.
Bloggers are often accused of recycling “mainstream media” news, but I find the personal stories and sharing teach my students a lot more about autism. My own experiences don’t register with them… I’m the teacher, after all, which is like Mom or Dad telling them something.
I’m just now setting up our Drupal portal for the autism lectures I give and feeds are a great and wonderful thing.
I’d love to know more about what you lecture on. And thank you for mentioning this blog to your students!
When I speak to any group, I am invariably asked about the “mercury” bloggers (I don’t know what else to call them). I suppose that’s better than being asked about blogs dedicated to “treatments” that make me cringe.
Most of my speaking and lecturing are on autism in young adults and how their learning is affected by the various disorders we call “autism.” My research work is on learning and the autistic brain. In particular, I look at how cognitive differences affect ASD students in secondary and post-secondary settings. Neurology is of interest to me, especially when we view scans of autistic individuals trying to learn skills. I thought about completing my science degree (four units short), but combining pedagogy and biology seemed like a way to never finish a degree.
Since I’m about to turn 40, finishing seemed wise. Like so many with autism disorders, I had other issues to deal with along the way.
Blogging is a good way to reach out to parents, but I don’t think they always want to hear what I might offer. More than one has written e-mail to me that I’m part of some major “it’s the genes” conspiracy.
I wonder why they don’t post comments? Might they fear looking silly?