As we continue to learn more about why mom’s are passionate about blogging and the legacy they hope to leave their children, today we share insights from Christina of A Mommy Story. Christina, a “mom to Cordy the Amazon Warrior Princess and infant Mira, and devoted wife to an actor/writer,” offers her thoughts on the following questions…

GEOFF: The parent blogosphere is  extremely diverse.  You recently wrote about the different levels of prosperity resulting from ads, etc in this corner of the blogosphere.  How does this impact parent bloggers?

CHRISTINA: I think the new monetization of parent blogs has been both beneficial and harmful. Many parent bloggers are now turning their hobby into part-time businesses – or just coffee money – through ads and paid blogging jobs. It’s great that this is now a viable option for parents who stay home with their kids, allowing them to contribute to the family income and feel that what they are doing has some worth (as businesses would see it) outside of their own family. PR firms are also contacting parent bloggers to offer free products to review and trips, such as the recent Johnson & Johnson Camp Baby trip. The opinions of parent bloggers are now sought after by several corporations.

But at the same time, while there is money to be made, few will make a significant amount of money from blogging, and not everyone can go on the trips or get the cool products to review. This has resulted in both jealousy and a lot of newer bloggers wanting to immediately monetize their blogs in the hopes of being the next Dooce. There are a few people who have the uniqueness and/or luck to be a big hit right away, but for most, the path to successful monetization involves hard work, quality writing, and community building. And isn’t community the real reason we all do this, anyway?

GEOFF: Tell us about the parent blogger scene in Ohio? Is it unique, or just another part of the country?

CHRISTINA: At first glance, it may not look like there are a lot of parent bloggers in Ohio. It took me a little while to find any, but since then I’ve met several, some of whom are now good friends of mine. I don’t know if the Ohio bloggers are a quieter group than most or if many of them just haven’t been discovered by the general population yet, but there are some excellent writers here in Ohio. I predict you’ll be seeing a lot more from several of them in the coming year.

GEOFF: In your mind, how does A Mommy Story contribute to the conversation?

CHRISTINA: When I started blogging, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to add to the conversation. My daughter was a year old, and I was a new mom who desperately needed a community of other moms to tell me that the frustrations and joys I was experiencing were totally normal. I spent much of the first year trying to find my voice, a voice I’m still not completely sure of. At the moment, I consider myself one of the voices of reason, trying to tackle controversial topics without letting the passion of my opinion cloud my argument. My How To Be a Popular Mommyblogger post was written after I’d seen far too much complaining about how some people got all the trips and money and other bloggers got nothing. I felt that people needed to stop and think for a moment about why some were getting all of the “perks” and that maybe it was because they earned it.

A Mommy Story is where I can share whatever is on my mind, whether it be about my kids, parenting, or trying to keep my identity beyond that of “mommy”. I also blog about the struggles of raising a daughter with autism. It was a diagnosis that, in some ways, caught me by surprise last year, and since then I’ve answered questions for so many others who worry that their child might have a developmental delay of some kind. Knowing I can help others with my writing makes those more painful posts easier to write, and tells me that what I’m doing is worth every second I put into it.

GEOFF: What could you leave behind in the parent blogosphere?

CHRISTINA: I’m hoping that someday my daughters will read my writing and get a better sense of who their mom is. As a child, there’s so much we don’t understand about our parents. But having the chance to see what I struggled with, what made me happy, and how I felt about them when they were young will hopefully help them see me as a woman who has her own interests and dreams as well as their mom, who has shaped her life around them. I also hope others will find what I’ve written years from now and see it as one of many accounts of motherhood at the turn of the century. What we blog today will be the memoirs that historians look through someday.

GEOFF: What do you hope your children will get out of social media?

CHRISTINA: Well, they’re still a little young to even browse the internet, so it’ll still be a few years. I hope they’ll listen to me and learn how social media can be used to their advantage without falling prey to the dark side. (Geez, I sound like a Jedi Master.) I want them to find their communities, build relationships, educate themselves and have fun. But I also hope I can teach them to not over share information and make themselves too vulnerable to others. 

A Mommy Story can be found at: http://amommystory.blogspot.com/

Dawn Chase won our Sea World Prize Pack contest last week. She downloaded the ParentPower application at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday night.

Dawn writes the Coming to a Nursery Near You blog. If you haven’t seen it yet, check it out. It’s got a great template, and is very pretty. You can also connect with Dawnie on twitter at Dawniemom.

Dawnie will receive her prize pack from SeaWorld Shortly. Thank you to SeaWorld for donating this great package for our contest.

Thank you to EVERYONE who downloaded the ParentPower Desktop Application. We welcome all new users!

Photo shows Sesame Street Bay of Play at SeaWorld, a whimsical play area opening Memorial Day weekend (May 24) at SeaWorld San Diego, will feature three family-friendly rides, including Elmo’s Flying Fish.

Geoff had the pleasure of interviewing Stefania Pomponi today – professional writer and blog editor/producer of CityMama. Known for her “keen eye for observation and her sharp wit”, Stefania, proud mother to “Bunny” and “Wallie” and wife to “J.”, writes about style, food, pop culture, and parenting with her own unique twist.

GEOFF: The parent blogosphere is extremely diverse. You recently wrote that you are a 1.5 generation Korean American. Does your cultural heritage provide a different view of the parent blogosphere?

STEFANIA: I am actually a 5th generation Korean-American and a 2nd generation Italian-American. My family on my Korean side arrived in Hawaii (an American territory back then) in 1898, and my father is Italian—he lives in Rome. This means that I don’t speak Korean but I do speak Italian! My cultural heritage provides a different view of the parent blogosphere only in that there are certain cultural practices particular to Asians or Italians that I can instantly relate to when I read other Korean-American and/or Italian parenting blogs. Other than that, the fact that I am Korean-Italian doesn’t change my view. I still have the same breastfeeding, diaper-changing, potty-training, preschool search, what do I make for dinner, how do I stick to my budget, “my kids are driving me nuts!” issues that most other parents have.

GEOFF: On CityMama you write a lot about food and politics. Which do you prefer to write about and why?

STEFANIA: On CityMama, I prefer to write about food and how I, as a busy mom of two, strive everyday to create delicious and healthy meals for my family. Cooking is my “arts and crafts.” It’s what I live to do. I am trying to raise children who appreciate good food, but that doesn’t necessarily mean “gourmet.” I do love to cook and am constantly improving my skills and repetoire of recipes, but for me good food means locally grown or sourced products as much as possible, non-GMO ingredients, a respect for seasonal produce, knowing where our food comes from, and making vegetables appealing without resorting to culinary chicanery. That being said, sometimes Happy Meals make everything better. For parents, too.

I do touch on politics on CityMama, but prefer to blog about those issues on MOMocrats.com. I co-founded the blog with two other noted parent bloggers and now we’ve grown to 22 progressive Democrat mom bloggers who write about issues that affect our families—like education, healthcare, poverty, and war—which, when you think about it, are issues that affect everyone.

GEOFF: In your mind, how do CityMama and Kimchi Mamas contribute to the conversation respectively?

STEFANIA: CityMama is really the place for me to blog about my life, my beautiful family, and what we eat. Kimchi Mamas is a culture and identity blog where we strive to connect with like-minded individuals. I measure the success of Kimchi Mamas by every email or comment we receive that says, “Thank God I found you. You relate to me and my experience raising a family.”

GEOFF: What could you leave behind in the parent blogosphere?

STEFANIA: Do you mean what would I like to leave behind as my stamp on the blogosphere? I hope that my recipes and stories about cooking for my family inspire other parents to conquer their fear of the kitchen and to cook for their kids more. To me there is no higher compliment than my girls giving me a thumbs up after tasting their meal and saying, “Mmmmm! This is really good!”

And, I know it’s a cliché to say it, but I also hope that when my kids are old enough, they can read CityMama to know just how much I love them. It really is my tribute to them the best way I know how. And if it’s around 30 years from now, when they have their own children, I hope they can read CityMama to know that they are not alone in their frustrating and joyful parenting moments.

GEOFF: What do you hope your children will get out of social media?

STEFANIA: To tell you the truth, I haven’t really thought about this question much. Because my husband and I are both work in the tech field and are so connected to our laptops, we purposely strive to keep our kids away from the computer. They are 5 and 3 so there is time for that. Recently they both received Webkinz and we went onto the site to register their pets. Both of them were turned off immediately preferring to actually play with the pets rather than buy them food and furniture online. That’s age-appropriate, I think, and is totally fine with me. My five-year-old gets a big kick out of Twitter, though. She cracks up everytime she sees the “What Are You Doing?” at the top of the screen. It makes me wonder what she is thinking. She is also at the age where she can read everyone’s tweets so I have to be careful not to Twitter around her. Thanks to one of my tweets, she knows that “shit” is spelled S-H-I-T. Not one of my finer parenting moments.

CityMama can be found at: http://citymama.typepad.com/citymama/

As part of our efforts at Geoff Livingston recently interviewed Shannon Entin, homeschooling mother, blogger, web designer, and, as she puts it, “lover of all things internet.” Shannon is the author of PHAT Mommy, as well as a contributor to New Jersey Moms Blog, and a Web Guru at Blissfully Domestic.

In addition to being a talented woman and parent of 2 children, Shannon has been blogging since 2005, and also is very active in pushing RSS technology.

What else is there about Shannon, you might ask? Here is some more insight in her interview with Geoff.

GEOFF: The parent blogosphere is extremely diverse. You write on New Jersey Mom’s blog. How is the parent blogosphere different in the Garden State?

SHANNON: I don’t think it is. The greatest part of the blogosphere is that no matter where you live or what your background is, you can connect with, identify with and support other parents.

GEOFF: PHAT = Parenting, Homeschooling And Thriving. Tell us about your blog, and how it discusses these three descriptions?

SHANNON: The original plan for my blog was to share updates on our homeschooling with family and also to archive the activities I do with the kids. But once I started blogging, it became much less about homeschooling and much more about connecting with others and sharing my thoughts. Over the past 3 years, I wrote a lot about parenting, but not much about homeschooling. That was also a function of the ages of my children – they were young and we weren’t actually doing that much “homeschooling.”

Now that my kids are getting older (3 1/2 and 9 1/2), I’m actually about to re-focus the blog a bit. I’m becoming less comfortable writing about the escapades of my children as they get older. It’s not “cute” anymore – and it could be embarrassing to them as they grow older. My son uses the internet now and could read my blog if he wanted to. In the next few days I’ll be re-designing my blog and tag line to: Parenting, Homeschooling and Tech-Loving. I’ll be writing more about social media – which is one of my passions.

GEOFF: What do you love about the parent blogosphere?

SHANNON: I think my answer to #1 applies here. I love how easy it is to “meet” new people and get answers and support at the click of a mouse.

GEOFF: What could you leave behind in the parent blogosphere?

SHANNON: Comment trolls. Judgmental parents. The whole (dreadfully tiresome) “mommy wars” thing.

GEOFF: What do you hope your children will get out of social media?

SHANNON: Well, first I hope they will be smart about it. I personally love social media, but it can get out of hand. I don’t want my kids sharing too much. I plan to teach them how to use social media wisely — to use it to further their goals. What do I want them to get out of it? Education, friendship, support, and fun.

GEOFF: Thanks, Shannon. If people want to reach your blog, where do they go?

SHANNON: My personal blog is at: http://phatmommy.com

If people are interested in New Jersey Moms Blog, they can go to: http://www.newjerseymomsblog.com

Lastly, Blissfully Domestic can be found at: http://blissfullydomestic.com

If you are interested in being interviewed for ParentPower, please let us know. We can be reached at: myvoice@parentpowerindex.com

Moms, be proud. New studies show that it’s definitely not a select group of us online, but a large percentage.

A new report from eMarketer compiles findings from different Internet tracking services showing the uptake of Internet usage among all women. Overall, moms represent 43.7% of all adult females (or 35.3 million) who go online.

Nielsen Online reports women online with children under 18 in their household as of winter 2007/2008 make up 22.6% of all adult Internet users. The report details more findings from comScore Media Metrix and Experian Consumer Research for different demographic groups and expecting moms, but they all point to the same thing – mom’s are online and most likely making their voices heard.

So why are we online? There’s no doubt that the Internet is an incredible source of content offering good and bad parenting information and social opportunities to talk with parents across the country, but it’s a place most of us feel comfortable turning to willingly because we understand it’s value.

If we find something we don’t like, we can use new social technologies like Blogs and Twitter to inform other parents or post a response ourselves. The power is at our fingertips to extend our knowledge as moms to one another like never before. Plus, it’s an incredible forum for blending our precious job of parenting with the greater social (online) community that keeps more and more of us connected daily.

So, here’s to the numbers of moms online increasing and all of us using everything we have at our disposal to not only be users but contributors.