If you're reading this post, you probably know about blogs. Of course, you could have happened upon this post by accident or Google search for a birth parent related topic and so I will throw a definition of "blog" out there so that we're all on the same page. From the Wiktionary:

A personal or corporate website in the form of an online journal, with new entries appearing in sequence as they are written, especially as dealing with reflections or opinion, and typically incorporating links to other articles.

Blogs exist on all kinds of topic from the very broad to the very specific. This one, referring to the birth/first parent blog, is part of a broader topic (adoption as a whole) but focuses on the ins and outs, the ups and downs and general life of a birth parent.

More and more blogs on adoption are popping up all over the "blogosphere" as more and more people are realizing the many benefits that come with sharing one's story online. In fact, as I've blogged about here before, All Top (a site featuring "top blogs") has a specific adoption page, featuring many birth parent blogs as well as blogs by adoptees, adoptive parents, foster parents and others touched by adoption.

Birth parents are an increasingly vocal group of bloggers. I actually wrote and spoke about the reasons why we are increasing in numbers and volume last October when I spoke at the University of Pittsburgh. The reasons from birth parent to birth parent, of course, vary as we all have different experiences, opinions and personalities. However, one main reasons is that for so many years, birth parents have been forced to keep quiet about their role and status as a birth parent. They're tired of being silenced and censored and they're speaking out. Again, there are many other reasons but you'll find that to be true even when comparing birth parents of past generations and birth parents who have relinquished within the past ten to twenty years. A blog is one place where we, as parents who have relinquished a child for adoption, can speak without being judged. (Well, most of the time.) It's our personal space and we say what comes and goes.

Over the next two weeks, I am going to post a series about blogging as a birth parent. I am going to hit on the positives and the negatives of publicly writing about your story. I am going to include some great links to other birth parent blogs so that you may expand your birth parent reading library. I am going to give personal examples of how blogging as a birth mother has had an effect on my real, everyday life... in good ways and in not-so-awesome ways. And, as I most often do, at the end of this two week series, I am going to offer you a challenge.

If you have something to say about blogging as a birth parent, please e-mail me at jennah AT adoptionblogs DOT com. Whether you just want to discuss something or have a question, I'm sure others have had your question or statement before and it would be great for our readers to read about these topics. Also, feel free to comment here with anything you'd like to see covered in the next two weeks.

I look forward to this series as adoption and writing (you know, blogging) are two of my passions. I hope you will learn something from it as well!

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For more on bloggers and blogging, read these posts.




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