Self-Expression or Self-Absorption?

"I don't know about blogs--sounds like reading someone's diary," my mother wrote in an emailed response to my invitation to check out my latest writing project (a.k.a. my blog).
Actually, I think that's the appeal of many blogs. It's virtual voyeurism. Blogs can also provide reassurance to readers that they're not the only ones stuggling with dirty diaper messes, dieting, haircuts from hell, etc. If you click through the blogs on Google's blogspot, as I've done a few times, you'll find bloggers from all over the world, writing (and in every language from Portugese to Punjabi) about their lives, their struggles, and their dreams. It can be pretty interesting stuff actually. For someone who loves Paris, and hasn't been there in a decade, I was fascinated to read a day-by-day account written by a friend of my husband's while he was attending business school there. His blog provided insights and observations on life in the city that I wouldn't find in a guide book. Of course, not all blogs are so interesting. But you don't have to read all blogs (nor could you, at this point, with the hundreds of thousands that exist these days). Just pick the ones that interest you. I'd be happy--honored, really--if mine made it onto your regular reading list.
Anyway, I think my mom may have been a bit turned off by the Sunday New York Times article about the growing popularity of parental blogging. "For the generation that begat reality television it seems that there is not a tale from the crib (no matter how mundane or scatological) that is unworthy of narration," writes David Hochman. "Today's parents - older, more established and socialized to voicing their emotions - may be uniquely equipped to document their children's' lives, but what they seem most likely to complain and marvel about is their own. The baby blog in many cases is an online shrine to parental self-absorption."
Ouch! So what does that make my blog? An online shrine to marital self-absorption? I'd like to think that my entries are a little less mundane (and definitely less scatological), at least, if for no other reason than the fact that I interact with a lot more people than a baby and a husband on a daily basis. And I live in New York City, which may be many things, but it is not boring.
But I'll let you be the judge. Now I'm off to meet some friends for dinner in Brooklyn Heights.