Don’t get me wrong, I love blogging for Strollerderby. Instead of
reacting to the day's news with long-winded diatribes delivered to my
confused 2-year-old, I get to post them for grown-ups who might actually give a rip. And
something about blogging makes me want to read even more blogs than I
had before, which is just a fun, fun thing to get to do “for work.” You
know?
But I’m an essay writer at heart. Though I love the
snappy, instant reactions of bloggers, there’s nothing more satisfying than
sinking my web browser into a carefully shaped piece
with characters and dialogue and a beginning, middle and end. So while
I’m keeping up with my regulars in blogland, I also make sure to stop in for the daily, monthly and quarterly updates on my favorite essay sites.
Of course, Babble sets the bar for fine essays on parenting, and I mean that even if the editors had never seen fit to publish a single piece of mine. I don’t care if the new essay is about allergies, or Maisy or a woman who’s way into her OB (eww!), I read anything over there in the columns and features sections from start to finish and it’s always a good read (if not a little creepy).
Moving on ... here you can usually find good writing, especially from the regular columnists. There’s the single mom who moved in too quickly with a new boyfriend and she writes alllllllll about it. There's also a scholar who hauled her husband and three kids to Africa for a year (husband didn’t like it so much).
This site has been on a racism jag lately and boy does it make me squirm -- a good thing. The writing isn’t always in essay form and isn't always so serious, but it’s always bold, frank and thoughtful.
While this site’s layout confuses me every time I visit, there are essays buried in it somewhere. Just click around until you find what you want.
I also make stops here, though they pull frequently from the archive, and here, where they feature writing by Babble's "motherhoodlum" star Emily Wagner.
Finally, this one will eat up your afternoons at work, so be careful. While the writing isn’t usually parent focused, who cares. I’m not always parent focused either.
