I had suuuuuuch high hopes for this book but it fell really short. Most of the reason it fell short is because I thought the overall theme was going to be about the insidious nature of “mommy bloggers” exploiting their children when it… did not touch on it AT ALL. Most of the story was about how hating mommy bloggers is misogynistic while also discussing how seeped in white supremacist heteronormative patriarchy it is. And while this is absolutely 100000% important and necessary to discuss, I was hoping like 80% would be about the child exploitation that goes along with being a “mommy blogger.” There is such an overlap in conservative and even QANON values/goals when it comes to child exploitation and manipulation that it seems almost purposeful to ignore this aspect of mommy blogging and especially within the characters where the author discusses white supremacy/diversity/qanon/etc.
I find it absolutely insane that there wasn’t even a minuscule mention of the child exploitation that’s rampant. The closest the author gets to mentioning this is at the VERY END when ex-mommy bloggers discussed stepping away from blogging and being sad when their children would say they should take pictures or ask them why they posted something. Yikes.

Overall, the story was fine? Tbh it seemed like it could have been two separate essays: one about the misogyny that’s seeped within hating mothers/motherhood/mommy bloggers and the second about the need to show diverse examples of motherhood to move away from there being only one “right” way to mother/be a mother. I don’t think we needed endless examples about specific bloggers.

I also wish the overview of the book explained more about how the above mentioned topics (re: ONLY MOTHERS) are the point of the book and not about the children bc I’m extremely disappointed that there wasn’t a more critical examination about exploitation of children through the media.