Discovering Identity Through Blogging and How You Can Find It Too

How The Downward Spiral Started

I had desperately waited for my daughter to turn 1. I thought once she is 1, she would be better at communicating and would start enjoying group activities. In other words, she would be able to adjust in a day-care environment. And that means, I would be able to pick up the pieces and go back to work.

Little B was 1 year and 6 months old when she was put in a daycare. It was a really nice daycare with well-trained staff. She started going to daycare and I started working full-time. The first week was tough. The second week was tough. I told myself “this shall pass,” but it didn’t. The third week and the fourth week and many more weeks that came were equally tough. Little B was staying engaged in the activities of the daycare but she was not eating, not sleeping, not even drinking water. We tried for almost 6 months, it didn’t work.

And so I was back at home again.

The State I Was In

I would never forget the spring of 2014. I was “sitting at home” with my 2-year-old daughter.  My “career” was nowhere in sight. I was enjoying the time that I was spending with her, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted something more. I kept nagging myself, “why did I bother to do a PG if one day I had to do nothing.” Every waking hour I asked myself, “what am I doing at home?”

Then a day came when I vented out everything that had been brewing in me for months. I got really angry, out of patience and out of control. I quickly phoned my husband, Mr B, and begged him to rush back from office.

Husband’s Perspective

I told him whatever was burning me up from inside. The thing with Mr B is that his advice is always rational and objective. He doesn’t pamper or gratifies. He just tells the situation from a couple different perspectives. He asked me what do I mean when I say career – whether I want money or identity?

I did not want money. I had a few freelancing activities to take care of that part. So I said “identity.”

He said, “…then you should invest in yourself. You do freelance ghost writing. Stop that and write for yourself.”

I agreed.

The Solution

The next few days were spent in my setting up a blog for myself.

The first thing we had to decide was the name of the blog. That could be decided only after deciding what I would write in the blog. I looked at Little B and it was clear. I wanted to write about my life and my days as I spend them with my daughter. Mr B and I went back and forth and we finally settled on “YellowMellowLife.”

How YellowMellowLife Evolved

That is how I started on this journey. I was spending a lot of time with my daughter. During that time I would do many activities with her, which most of the times were just random things. Our favorite activities included going for walks, collecting random things, observing insects, gardening, art and craft and cooking.

Blogging as a parent was easy. I was already doing these great activities with her. All I had to do was to take pictures and write a blog on it. My first blog was “Paddle Fan – Craft Ideas For Summer.” And it is a classic example of the kind of things I blogged about, nothing fancy, nothing out-of-the-world. Just a simple thing that I enjoyed with my daughter.

My Perspective Changed

Blogging about my life as a parent started changing the way I looked at things. Every time I wrote something, I played the entire event in my head. I revisited what I observed Little B do, what I told her, what she said back. That gave me the opportunity to introspect.

Lot of times, I would spend time on the internet reading child development and psychology or would talk to people who understand the subject. For example, I researched about pencil grasp development of children and found out that mastery of the tripod pencil grasp comes only around 5 years of age. So I didn’t force Little B for writing. We spend a lot of time doing activities that strengthen fingers like playing with dough or making collages; but avoided doing any sort of repeated writing work.

I felt that I was getting better and better at parenting. I was becoming a happier person too. All because now I was writing about it.

The “Identity” That I Was Looking For

As my first blogging year passed, I came in contact with MyCity4Kids. I found that there is a whole world of blogging mothers out there at MyCity4Kids. They were not just mothers, they were real mothers. They wrote about how beautiful is parenting and also about how agonizing it is. They wrote about how much they love being a mother and also about how much they hate it.

I became part of the MyCity4Kids community. I started getting recognition. I started communicating with other mothers. I started getting parenting-related freelance work through them. I started winning goodies and vouchers. Sometimes little things and sometimes big things.

I found the “identity” I was looking for.

Motherhood – A Profession

Two years back I thought that being a mother has made me unprofessional. Today if somebody asks me my profession, I reply, “I am a mother.” Yeah, I have made motherhood as my profession.

What Can You Do?

If you are a stay-at-home mother and just like I felt once, you feel that you have no “career;” you are wrong. Your career is your child. The parenting blogger’s community is still limited and thus there’s scope for many more mothers to join it.

You just have to go ahead and write a blog. Had a bad day with your child or a good day, just blog about it. Don’t worry about grammar or vocabulary. Just write what you want to write. There are so many mothers out there and I am certain at least one would relate to your story.