But your very reaction is exemplary of a high-value employee – “I resent even the implication that I would neglect work for convenience in family matters.”

It isn’t stereotyping to hold that standard, although I can see why you’d feel it was stereotyping if I had assumed you in particular had ignored your work responsibilities.

Again, please accept my apologies for my poor syntax.

Your comment: “Speaking directly to Matt – I never rescheduled a meeting or called in sick due to a family issue. That’s a stereotype.”

My response: What I said is in no way stereotyping. If I told my boss that I couldn’t make it today because Junior had a soccer game, I would be viewed as less reliable. No one gets high-fives at work [from me] for being a good daddy or mommy or volunteer; you get high fives fat work or being dependable at work.

I too see a double-standard, but I suppose not the same one.

You seriously believe people have always been this discoverable? There has never been a mechanism for the world to read your diary and view photos of your life’s most private moments previous to the web. I’m afraid your statement makes no sense.

I don’t want to take away from Susan’s wonderful post by discussing that more here, but why is it wrong for us, as women, to take possession of the unique perspective our parenting experiences give us? I see that as totally different from the MSM and corporate America using mothers to keep us in a position they don’t find threatening.

Anon – there really is no such thing as anonymity anymore. I could write under a pseudonym but anyone with two adjacent brain cells and an internet connection could find out who I am. Same for the kids. And my kids are fully aware and happy with the stories, and know that thousands of people read them. The information they are not allowed to give out is along the lines of phone number, credit card numbers, where they go to school and where they will be – commonsense things you wouldn’t give to a person on the street. It’s all about education in a new medium. People have been discoverable for ages – it’s just a new angle on an old issue.

As to the comment about pundit and mom, that was Joanne’s, not mine.

Second, Susan, I’m concerned that you didn’t even watch the Oprah segment. It’s astonishing that you would assume it was more of the same. It wasn’t. We are making strides and bringing more visibility to our blended roles and gaining respect for how we do it, but you aren’t even watching the shows/reading the press that would support your point! Your prejudice is allowing you to make the same mistakes you fear other media are making, and compounding it by projecting your fears outward without taking in new information.

This comment grabbed me:

“I can’t be a pundit AND a mom? That’s the whole point of the blog name — not just a mom and don’t define me by it! Am I right ladies?“

Aren’t you sort of stepping all over your own point?

The use of a label is not in itself damaging. I find that telling people that I write a mommy blog is the most concise way of describing what I do. AND I stay home with the kids! Only because I am unemployed, but hey, how many of their friends can say they are dropped off at school and greeted at the cub in the afternoon by a mom who then goes home and thinks about MOTHERING? It’s a happy tragedy that I’m able to do that. Tragic because we’re beyond broke, but happy because they are not away from home and their mother ten hours a day in a daycare.

That used to be me – Twelve years as a foundation executive! Three maternity leaves in four years! Childless boss! Run out of town!

Is anyone upset at being called a tech blogger? Or social media blogger? Are we being too sensitive? I think both genders have to choose where the focus will be, because you can’t do both to the hilt. That is why we have partnerships. And why I wish I had one.

It’s almost like women don’t exist at all unless they are framed as something — moms, career gals who balk at mother, angry feminists.

Men are allowed to be, well, just men. They aren’t defined by mommyhood or working or anything. They are just them. Why can’t women be like that, too?