Girls Gone Child

I've been reading Rebecca Woolf's blog, Girl's Gone Child, since her twins were babies, which was before my youngest child was even born. My own discovery of her blog came about from some kind of Top 25 Mommybloggers list, and I think she must have been near the top because I couldn't see myself clicking that far through. But also because she deserves to be there.

I remember being immediately entranced by what, for me, were the more exotic aspects Woolf's life—her Los Angeles Spanish-style house, its Bohemian decor, all that sunshine, her children's unusual names, and also her own unconventional path of coming to family and motherhood. I remember going back through her archives (more than a decade of them!) to figure out who was who and what was what, and what her stories were. I remember that the writer I found in those archives was very different from the writer I'd encountered in the present, and this disjunction was intriguing. Woolf acknowledges it too, what a different person, woman and mother she is now than she was ten years ago. I guess four kids and turning thirty will do that to a person—who'd have imagined it? She has written about cringing at some of her archives, and at her mothering memoir now, looking back. The only way around this, however, I think, would be never ever changing, or writing nothing down at all.

I love the way that she has invited her readers to be part of her own evolution, as she's grown older and her family has grown—in particular about how motherhood has informed her feminism. I think it's remarkable the way she has even made me think that having a large family would be a really a good idea (I know!!) even while she is frank about it's challenges. Her posts about sleep and exhaustion during her twins' infancy were raw and awful. I love her posts on sending her children out into the world, and the honesty with which she writes about marriage, and how she can make rats in the walls into a metaphor. I also admire the fact that she admits she has rats in the walls. That there is more to her life than a really great iPhone camera and endless days spent on the beach. But also that there is wonder, and goodness, and so much love—this post about her 10 year wedding anniversary and six people in a pink cadillac is a particular favourite of mine.

She is the only blogger I read whose sponsored posts are as interesting as her unsponsored ones. I mean, they don't all grab me, but I usually don't read sponsored posts ever, so this is something. Whenever she posts a link to her work elsewhere, she is conscious about making the linking itself a worthy post of its own so that her core readers get something for showing up at her site. And although she has a wide readership, she engages with her audience on Twitter and in her comments, which makes her sincerity seem even more underlined.

She inspires me as a blogger, as a woman, a mother, and a person. Some might roll their eyes at the too-beautiful life sometimes depicted in her images, but those images are balanced by down-to-earth honesty, and I just so appreciate how she lets us know that such beauty is out there. I'm grateful that she shares it.