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industry<br />
IN LATE SEPTEMBER, a gaggle of 50-odd<br />
bloggers gathered 36 fl oors above<br />
Central Park in a conference room at the<br />
Mandarin Oriental Hotel, snapping pics<br />
of the dramatic views. The writers were<br />
moms and dads mostly, all anxiously<br />
awaiting a product that promised to<br />
change their lives. “What happens when<br />
you try to chop veggies in a food processor?”<br />
celeb chef Robin Miller asked the<br />
crowd. “Mushy!” someone called back.<br />
“Mushy!” Miller agreed, stuffi ng the<br />
Ninja Master Prep with mushrooms.<br />
“Look at that! One, two, three pulses.<br />
Your mushrooms? Done.” The crowd<br />
murmured appreciatively. “Wow, is that<br />
CULTURE | DECEMBER <strong>2009</strong><br />
Parental Guidance<br />
With mommy blogs proliferating, big corporations<br />
have begun cultivating authors with freebies,<br />
trips and even cash. Now readers are wondering,<br />
does mother really know best?<br />
BY SARAH WILDMAN // ILLUSTRATIONS BY JAMES MAJOWSKI<br />
going to make my life so much easier!”<br />
blogged one mom later that day. “I so<br />
want to make the curry chicken salad!”<br />
tweeted another.<br />
Infomercial? Sort of. But this isn’t<br />
late-night TV. It’s the new reality<br />
of parental blogging: shilling for<br />
companies in exchange for freebies and<br />
trips to fun locales.<br />
It used to be the defi nition of a<br />
mommy (or daddy) blogger was a<br />
parent anxious to navigate the tricky<br />
shoals of child-rearing by confi ding<br />
in the outside world, chatting away<br />
in the internet’s electronic sandbox.<br />
That was before audiences exploded.<br />
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