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Monday, March 30, 2009

Egalitarian Family Blogging?

Something occurred to me, in connection with the local attention that Bobby Rozzell's Douglas and Main link-blog has received, thanks to the Wichita Eagle. And maybe it's a self-interested observation, but still...it has to do with the fact that Mr. Rozzell has been following the blog of both my wife and I, with actually fairly little cross-over. Which makes me wonder: just how common is it for a married couple to maintain separate--and more or less equally busy--blogging lives?

I'm not talking about both partners contributing to a joint or family blog; that pattern is very well established (one of the very first blogs I followed regularly, John and Belle Have a Blog, was such an example), and it's gotten to the point now where half my extended family members do just that--though amongst the mostly traditional husband-and-wife pairings in my family, it usually turns out that nearly all the posting is kid-related, and nearly all of it is done by the wife. And actually, even outside of those more-or-less consciously traditional marriages, the same pattern I think seems to hold generally: J&B is pretty much entirely Belle Waring's blog now, while John Holbo posts almost exclusively at Crooked Timber. The same, I think, could be said of Halfway Down the Danube, which is pretty much Doug Muir's sole playground now. Maybe there's something structural that makes it difficult for public husband-and-wife blogs to maintain their "jointness" over the long haul. But in any case, I'm talking about something different: not shared blogs, and not roommates/lovers/insert-your-preferred-term-of-choice-here blogging separately, but actual married-with-kids families where both the wife and husband are bloggers, and both keep it up separately over the long term.

Am I wrong in thinking that Melissa and I are unusual in this regard? I can only think of one other married couple I know of where both blog in different places, and do so more or less equally. If it is unusual, does that tell us something about egalitarianism in the family, following in the grand tradition of some great recent posts by Laura McKenna and Harry Brighouse? Or is the whole issue so ridiculously narrow (oh look, another blogger blogging about...blogging!) as to have no statistical relevance to the real world?

What say you all? If nothing else, give me some examples that might help make a case, one way or another?

8 comments:

loafingcactus said...

My ex-boyfriend and I both blogged separately. We had very little cross-reference and where we did reference we didn't highlight it as a close relationship. We didn't want the blogosphere to be too weird if we broke up (which obviously we did). He had two sets of married friends that had separate blogs.

And I think that's all I know of. Because of the lack of cross-reference, I never would have known those people had spouses who blogged if I didn't know them personally.

Camassia said...

The hosts for my blog, Joel and Lynn Gazis-Sax, have been blogging separately for six or seven years now. Also the Internet Monk, Michael Spencer, and his wife Denise have been doing that for a while, although he seems to have far more readers than she does (if the number of comments is anything to go by). It does seem to be pretty common, though, that a couple will set out to blog and one of them is more enthusiastic than the other, and ends up doing all the blogging.

Hector said...

Russell,

Yeah, I was going to mention Lynn Gazis-Sax, though I haven't read her husband's blog. You should check out her blog sometime- she writes with a degree of charity towards her allies and opponents that we would all do well to learn from!

Russell Arben Fox said...

Camassia, Hector...where can I find Joel and Lynn Gazis-Sax's blogs? I've heard the name mentioned before, and I think I used to see it all the time in blogrolls, but a quick scan does find me any links. Where should I be looking?

Camassia said...

Hmmm, my template reset itself again so my blogroll disappeared. But the link to Lynn's blog should be http://notfrisco2.com/leones, and Joel's is http://notfrisco2.com/paxnortona.

John B. said...

Russell,
There are a husband and wife in the Delano District here in Wichita, each of whom has two separate blogs with no crossover from the spouse. I daresay that they are unusual in that regard.

Russell Arben Fox said...

John--who are they? You make me curious.

John B. said...

Russell,
I'll e-mail the links to you.