Not Your Average Fake Mommy Blog

I recently read the viral rant of a former mommy blogger complaining about how fake she had to be to make a living out of blogging. This is something that I have noticed as well and which is why I don’t tend to read most other mommy blogs.

Not every blogger is like this but it happens often enough to give this community a bad rep.

I will occasionally read homeschooling blogs and have to dig through the fluff of sponsored posts for the real meaty content that I need, not cool.

You don’t have to worry about that here, I don’t blog to make money, I don’t write to increase page hits. My goal isn’t to go viral or become an Internet celebrity; I just want to write about what’s on my mind and if it helps someone along the way that would be a nice plus.

A lot of other bloggers don’t like me for this, they think that we should all be “influencer marketers”. They think that we shouldn’t write for free and there is a whole industry of books, seminars and conference for mommy bloggers to teach you how to do it “right”. I don’t see myself ever paying for that.

When I write a review about a product it’s because I like reading reviews from others when I am shopping and my experience may help somebody else make a purchasing decision. With the exception of some books I review on Amazon, I don’t get the product for free or get paid to write a review and I will always disclose those cases. Yesterday I was approached by a toy rental company offering me free toys because I am a “social influencer” they say they would love a review but it’s not required, I like that offer better than other companies that approached me offering me money to write a post about my life with some carefully staged pictures of my family with their products and wanted to have editorial oversight on what I wrote.  I will never do that, I don’t even know if I’ll accept the free toys that are supposedly no strings attached.

While I am not against making money (and gods know that I could definitely use some), I refuse to have to cater my content to the whims of a sponsor. I want to write about what I want to when I want to without self censoring. A lot of blogs show these perfect lives that don’t reflect reality because the writers are not allowed to be honest and can’t write anything other than positive things or risk losing their sponsorship income.

I could add a bunch of ads to the page and make money that way but I don’t find the income to be worth the visual hassle as I hate visiting blogs bloated with advertising so I don’t want the same for mine.

For full disclosure, this blog does generate a tiny amount of revenue from the handful of affiliate ads on the sidebar. The amount is so minor that it doesn’t even come close to paying for the hosting of this website. You can rest assured that whatever I write here is because it’s important to me and not because anybody wanted to sell something to you through me.