Geek Speak: Amber Strocel, parent blogger

Amber Strocel is not a fan of the term “mommy blogging”. The 35-year-old, Surrey-born Coquitlam resident will have the opportunity to explain why when she participates in a panel discussion at the 2011 Northern Voice personal blogging and social media conference. The two-day event starts today (May 13) and takes place at the University of British Columbia’s Point Grey campus.

On Saturday (May 14), Strocel will be one of the panellists for “Parenting Online—Families, Blogs and Social Media”. Arieanna Schweber will moderate the session, which will also feature bloggers Kerry Sauriol and Vincent Marra.

A former electrical engineer, Strocel writes about her family life at Strocel.com. She started the blog in 2003, before she had her son and daughter, who are now two and six years old, respectively. Being a parent blogger led her to develop Crafting My Life, an online course for mothers. Strocel’s husband, Jon, runs The V3H, a Tri-Cities community site where she is a regular contributor. She is also the webmaster for ArtsConnect Tri-Cities Arts Council and does social-media consulting.

The Georgia Straight interviewed Strocel by phone.

Where do you draw the line between what you will and won’t blog about regarding your family?

It’s a constantly evolving thing. I’d say my big metric is I try to think about how I’d feel if my mother wrote that about me. That’s kind of my big thing. I also try to respect other people’s privacy. So, I won’t blog about other people’s kids or share photos of other people’s kids without their explicit permission, because that would be rude. I don’t talk specifically about the name of my kid’s school, for example, because other people might be uncomfortable with that as well.

Beyond that, I just make decisions on a case-by-case basis, and I use that metric of, “How would I feel if my mom said this about me?” So, as my kids get older, I will typically share less. If my mom was to say on the Internet that I was learning to use the toilet, as a two-year-old that wouldn’t offend me. But I wouldn’t necessarily share details of what’s going on with my six-year-old in the same way.

What’s a new trend you’ve noticed in parent blogging?

The balance seems to always be shifting around monetization. The hot topic in parent blogging is, “Is your blog a money-making vehicle or not?” I don’t know if I’m noticing new trends so much as this is a constantly moving line. It kind of goes back and forth—swings from “blogging is a great way to make money” and “blogging isn’t a great way to make money”.

I think also social media has changed parent blogging just as it’s changed all blogging. It’s a new way to promote your blog. It’s almost, for some people, a replacement for blogging. That kind of is a continually ongoing thing as we figure out how to use social media and blogs, and how they interconnect and intertwine and that sort of thing.

Why do you think the parent-blogging field is dominated by women?

I don’t know. This is almost a better question to ask a dad. This is painting with a really broad brush, but I don’t think you tend to see fathers define themselves by their parenting in the same way. My husband talks about our kids a lot. But mothers are more prone to defining themselves by their parenting and to feel the need to share that experience. They’re also more often the primary parent, so they’re spending a lot of their time—maybe all of their time—with their kids. So, obviously it’s a big topic of conversation. That’s the first thing.

Then the other thing is that societally we often feel the need to define mothers by their parenting. The mompreneur label—you don’t see the dadpreneur label. When I do a Google search, the number of hits for “mompreneur” are like in the millions. You get a couple hundred thousand for “dadpreneur”. So, there’s this thing that exists in our society. You’re always a mom and whatever else you’re doing. I think part of that is something that moms adopt ourselves and part of it is the way society defines us.

Why might someone want to take your online course called Crafting My Life?

Because they kind of know that they want something more, but they’re not sure what that is. I think a lot of us find when we have kids—and especially moms—it’s a big wake-up call for a lot of us. We can see that maybe we aren’t really happy with where we are in our lives. We want something else, but we don’t really know how to take that first step. So, the class gives you a chance to connect with other people and kind of gives you kick-starts to figuring out what you want to do with the rest of your life.

Every Friday, Geek Speak catches up with someone in Vancouver’s technology sector, video-game industry, or social-media scene. Who should we interview next? Tell Stephen Hui on Twitter at twitter.com/stephenhui.