When I first started World Moms Blog, I don’t think I could have possibly comprehended what it was going to be like.  Each week we read different experiences in the form of blog posts from around the world on so many different topics.  The mothers who write for the blog are challenging me to think and leading me to places and topics that I haven’t thought about before.

This week, I felt Carol’s sadness of raising a child miles and miles away from her family, Margie’s pain at the loss of her newborn baby, Kally’s laughs about TV moms through the ages, and I got distracted by Polish Mom Photographer’s delicious looking chocolate cake. I also got to read about many of the World Moms’ pregnancy cravings in the Friday Question.

I care about this blog so much. I want to learn and grow with our writers and the community that has developed around our posts.  My motherhood experience has definitely been enhanced by World Moms Blog in ways and emotions that I could have never imagined.

As an editor, my biggest challenge is, well….editing.  If a writer writes about her life experience, my personal reaction is that we read it as just that.  It may offend, it may not, but we have the unique opportunity to look through a lens and see how other people live as though we are in their in-group.  When do we ever get the chance to do that?

This awareness can lead to a better understanding of at least one person’s experience within that culture, whether you agree with it, or not.  But, we get to know it. Taste it, touch it, smell it.

I struggle with how I can become bold enough to post things exactly as they are written regarding controversial topics. Can I get the blog to this point?

What worries me is that in this day and age, we still see so many examples of mainstream media taking things out of context to make the points they want to make or to misrepresent someone’s reputation. (Can you tell I watch a lot of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart?) Will someone one day try to do that to our blog?

Could someone take a defamatory word if published on our blog out of context to try to bring our entire blog down or try to hurt the reputation of our writers as a whole?  Would the insanity of that ever happening hold with our readers who know us?  Would it hold with people who have yet to meet us? Is posting such a word worth the industrious effort we are putting through to do good work?

Through World Moms Blog we are creating a community of mothers to learn from around the globe, offering support and encouragement to mothers and trying to create a place that holds trying to gain an understanding of others at such high esteem.

Our writer’s guidelines say “no defamatory language.”  I’ve given it a lot of thought, and will continue to stand by this.  Why?  Because I feel that when inflammatory words are used, it can be difficult to easily see beyond the hurtful word because it can trigger negative feelings.  In that case, we can get caught up in these words and they can hinder healthy, intelligent debate of the main points of a post.

I can frankly tell you that I’m not going to always be right.  And, you may not always stand with all of my editorial decisions.  I’m learning as I go along! I don’t like censorship, and I struggle with censoring anything we publish on the blog, especially when it’s a writer’s life experience. And, I decided to make the tough decision to do just that this week.

That being said, I need time.  I need time to try to be bolder about what we can post.  I hope to get there one day, but I’m not quite there yet.

I’ve also written some heartfelt words on race relations this week.  As I’ve used up so much of the column already, I will save them for next week, so stay tuned!

Now on to the rest of the week in review…

Monday we went to Nova Scotia, Canada, where Carol @ If By Yes talked about living far away from her family, lobster and Bernice, just Bernice (I love that line!).  Photos have been updated on this post since Monday, so go back and take a look!

On Tuesday, we were in Arkansas, where we heard about Margie Bryant’s tough decision and the loss of her child at 24 days after a premature birth brought on by a ruptured appendix.  This was a very emotional post and Margie found much support 14 years after her decision from the World Moms Blog community.

Margie had mostly thumbs up on her post, but she also noted a few “thumbs down”. How can we get readers with opposing viewpoints to feel comfortable to discuss them in the comments field?  This post has 40+ comments, 28 tweets and Margie was given a paid writing opportunity by a reader based on this post!

Who is Claire Dunphy?   We found out on Wednesday with Kally’s post about TV moms throug the ages. Kally feels that the Modern Family main mother character relates to the mothers of today.  What do you think?

Thursday, see the post on Polish chocolate cake by Polish Mom Photographer of California.  It has been re-edited, but you can still find Polish Mom Photographer’s amazing pictures and cake recipe!

Our writer interviews this week were from two of our editors, Eva Fannon of Washington, USA and Kyla P’an of Massachusetts, USA, two interesting bilingual ladies on opposing US coasts!

In our Friday Question the World Moms chimed in about their pregnancy cravings, if you missed it!

On to Kirsten Doyle’s Travel Itinerary tomorrow, where we find out where the blog is traveling to next week!

Also, in news…we’ve narrowed the Saturday Column name submissions down to 4 and WMB writers are currently being polled.  Polling closes on Thursday, July 7th, and by next week…we’ll have a title!

We welcome new writer, Maman Aya of New York City, and look out for an announcement this week (HINT:  We’ll be writing from a new continent!).

Thank you for reading!

Jennifer Burden

Founder/Editor

World Moms Blog

Our World Moms Blog logo was designed by the creative Erica Joyner Designs in Virginia, USA.

Jennifer Burden

Jennifer Burden is the Founder and CEO of World Moms Network, an award winning website on global motherhood, culture, human rights and social good. World Moms Network writes from over 30 countries, has over 70 contributors and was listed by Forbes as one of the “Best 100 Websites for Women”, named a “must read” by The New York Times, and was recommended by The Times of India. She was also invited to Uganda to view UNICEF’s family health programs with Shot@Life and was previously named a “Global Influencer Fellow” and “Social Media Fellow” by the UN Foundation. Jennifer was invited to the White House twice, including as a nominated "Changemaker" for the State of the World Women Summit. She also participated in the One Campaign’s first AYA Summit on the topic of women and girl empowerment and organized and spoke on an international panel at the World Bank in Washington, DC on the importance of a universal education for all girls. Her writing has been featured by Baby Center, Huffington Post, ONE.org, the UN Foundation’s Shot@Life, and The Gates Foundation’s “Impatient Optimists.” She is currently a candidate in Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs in the Executive Masters of Public Affairs program, where she hopes to further her study of global policies affecting women and girls. Jennifer can be found on Twitter @JenniferBurden.

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