Taking good care of a family is relative

Taking good care of a family is relative In response to my musings about what it means to be a blogger who is just a blogger, Alexandra Levit sent me an article about bloggers who support themselves blogging. I read it twice. Then I started checking out all the blogs, trying to uncover the secret of the million-dollar blog. Here is what I uncovered: Heather B (who is truly a wonderful writer) is cited in the article as bringing in enough money to allow her family to live comfortably. But it turns out that she and her husband recently participated in a study where they get injected with whooping cough so that they can get $50 and a free tetnaus shot. I know that everyone has a different idea of living comfortably. But I happen to know the guy who wrote the article for Business 2.0 hes my old editor. And Im certain that he would not be comfortable in the whooping cough study. This reminds me of something I hate: Articles about women that focus on the dual acheivment of doing well at work and with kids. We never hear from the kids. We never see the inner workings of the household. What does it mean to do a great job with kids? Its all relative. All self-reported. Its all BS. In fact, I did a followup on one of these stories. I looked up an article from Working Mother from a few years back one of those articles about How I successfully balance home and work. I called the woman to find out how things are going with her business and her three school-age sons. I interviewed her and her teenage son. I was appalled at how little time she spent with the son. And then he said hed never want to be like his dad because his dad (Fortune 500 COO) was always at work. I couldnt even bring myself to write about the family using their names because it was so bad. And the woman continues to believe that shes doing a great job balancing work and family. I put these topics in the same category: Reports about bloggers who live comfortably and women who do a good job at both work and home. Its all subjective and relative and hearsay. Useless information.