Welcome to Finslippy. I'm Mrs. Brady.
Of course I'm all for being mentioned in the (vaguely damning) New York Times article, but um, Mr. Hochman? It's BRADLEY.
It could have been worse. I could have been Alison Brady.
Okay, carry on.
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Of course I'm all for being mentioned in the (vaguely damning) New York Times article, but um, Mr. Hochman? It's BRADLEY.
It could have been worse. I could have been Alison Brady.
Okay, carry on.
The comments to this entry are closed.
Make sure to go around for the next two weeks saying "Marcia Marcia MARcia!"
Or, um, you know, not.
Posted by: The Zero Boss | January 29, 2005 at 11:27 AM
LOL! I saw that! Sokay, Alice, we still love you... whoever you are. ;)
Posted by: Mir | January 29, 2005 at 11:41 AM
That's so BAD. But also, kind of funny.
Posted by: Jenny | January 29, 2005 at 12:23 PM
I guess "Scott" must really be Sam the Butcher.
Posted by: LOD | January 29, 2005 at 01:27 PM
Congratulations... Sort of.
Posted by: Jenny | January 29, 2005 at 02:30 PM
yeah...that article was quite derogatory.
Posted by: wix | January 29, 2005 at 02:45 PM
I was all almost understanding how they could have gotten wrong by just forgetting to fact-check the spelling of your name, but then my sister said you conducted the interview via email, and your email address HAS YOUR LAST NAME IN IT. Now I will never trust the Times to get anything right again.
That article totally forgot to mention why parenting blogs are so popular: by and large, they're FUNNY.
Posted by: debl | January 29, 2005 at 03:27 PM
That's awful! Man, some line of fact-checking defense THEY have. I'm pretty disappointed by the lack of analysis or new info, but, hey, now you'll get lots of new traffic!
Posted by: H.E.R. | January 29, 2005 at 03:33 PM
Well, the interview was over the phone, but yeah, he did email me a bunch of times. By the way, several other names were misspelled. So now I don't feel as special. Sob.
Posted by: alice | January 29, 2005 at 03:58 PM
I was all happy about my favorite bloggers getting quoted, but the quote from the Blessings of a Skinned Knee woman really bugged me. Blogging as a manifestation of over-attentive parenting? Oh, please. When I'm on the Internet, my kid could skin her both knees *and* her elbows and I'd be like, "Okay, sweetie. I'll be right there. I just have to write this one comment..."
Posted by: elswhere | January 29, 2005 at 04:18 PM
Yeah - the article was sort of holier than thou wasn't it? I mean, you really are damned if you do and damned if you don't anymore with parenting. If you're laid back, you're neglectful and if you pay attention you're overbearing. And apparently blogging about your life (if it happens to include kids) is overbearing? I don't get it. Can't it just be a good outlet for creative people who like to write meeting up with other like-minded people who enjoy their work? Noooooo .... it can't be that!
Posted by: christy kilgore-hadley | January 29, 2005 at 04:40 PM
When he called you Alice Brady- all I could think of was the Brady Bunch- and you were the maid.
As I said on Melissa's- I think you all write because you are good writers, and blogging is a way to give your words an audience. You writing on the subject of your children is natural, they are the focus of your life right now. Bill Cosby, Erma Bombeck, Rosanne Barr have all used their family life as a subject of their creative work. This is not some new phenomenon. I read you and others because I enjoy your insight and humor, regardless of the subject matter.
Posted by: Lisa | January 29, 2005 at 04:59 PM
When he called you Alice Brady- all I could think of was the Brady Bunch- and you were the maid.
As I said on Melissa's- I think you all write because you are good writers, and blogging is a way to give your words an audience. You writing on the subject of your children is natural, they are the focus of your life right now. Bill Cosby, Erma Bombeck, Rosanne Barr have all used their family life as a subject of their creative work. This is not some new phenomenon. I read you and others because I enjoy your insight and humor, regardless of the subject matter.
Posted by: Lisa | January 29, 2005 at 04:59 PM
The Times's lifestyle pieces are starting to sound like a parody of themselves--they always include introductory anecdote, brief descriptions of 'characters' involved, quotes from psychologists/authors about topic and/or 'characters' and, finally, sweeping generalizations to make it all pat. In this case, they forgot to include readers' thoughts--or, most likely, they still don't quite understand the idea of blogging as an interactive medium, since newspapers, especially the Times, are anything but.
Posted by: Suzyn | January 29, 2005 at 05:04 PM
Suzyn, I could not have expressed it better.
Posted by: Very Mom | January 29, 2005 at 07:09 PM
I was like "who the hell is Mrs. Brady?" And then I thought of the brady bunch and the mom's hair and then I was like...WTF...where am I? who are these people that i normally see on my computer and why are they on a newspaper?
And then I cried.
Posted by: Sarcastic Journalist | January 29, 2005 at 07:57 PM
PS, and could they make me feel any more horrible about writing a book and having a mommy blog? Because I think the times wants me to slit my wrists.
PPS I love Finslippy!
Posted by: Sarcastic Journalist | January 29, 2005 at 07:58 PM
Actually, he broke open the story of the decade. Alice Bradley is in fact Alice BRADY former maid to the Brady Bunch who secretly married Mike Brady in a private bigamist ceremony in Vegas. She, Carol and Mike have all been living in secret bliss until Mr. Hochman had to go and blow the lid off of the entire story! Damn the luck. ;-)
Alice, you are and have been one of my favorite bloggers since Melissa first introduced your blog to me. You crack me up and I love hearing your stories...whoever the hell you are.
Posted by: Jenn | January 29, 2005 at 11:24 PM
The Times forgot two of the quinessential mothers "who writes about her children" - Erma Bombeck and the much lesser-known (but even funnier) Teresa Bloomingdale. Can you imagine the Blogs they would have had? Sigh.
Also, I should note that I had no clue of the category "mommy blog" until all this BoB stuff came about. Previously, I thought I was enjoying blogs by excellent writers who among other things, were mothers. Silly me. So much for not labeling people in this day and age.
Sincerely,
Non-Mommy Blogger Who Still Enjoys Those Big, Bad Mommy Blogs.
Posted by: cagey | January 30, 2005 at 10:26 AM
I was wondering why that sounded so familiar. Alice Brady, hmm, Alice Brady... I think I know her. Kind of an older gal, yeah.
I thought the piece was OK, but the writer did kind of gyp us on the goodness of the finslippy.
Posted by: Georgia | January 30, 2005 at 02:05 PM
Yes, I was just telling SJ that I had this many kids just to have more to blog about. And overattentive parenting? I once told my two year old that she may NOT climb on the roof. I wasn't at my computer, though, because if I were, she'd be up there till and I'd never have seen her again. Because all those sattlelite image websites that show houses so youo can stalk your friends? Are all several years out of date. I'd never have spotted her skeleton.
Hey you don't mind if I make this into a post, do you? Because I'm not through, and blogging is all about me and pfffft who's going to notice ME in YOUR comments??
Posted by: Mindy | January 30, 2005 at 11:28 PM
That's pretty bad. There was a big ol' usage error in that article too. ("But the question is, at who's expense?")
Well, maybe it's petty to nitpick. I mean, it's (its?) only supposed to be the paper of record for the entire country, right?
Posted by: Joolie | January 31, 2005 at 04:44 AM
In my opinion, what he was writing was JUST his opinion, and not news, NOT facts.
The point that he missed is that there are some really good writers out there. It doesn't matter if they are self absorbed, narcissistic, or even boorish, if they write well, they are worth reading. His article, with all of its mistakes, was, in my opinion, not worth reading.
Posted by: Gary M. | January 31, 2005 at 09:01 AM
Yeah, boy, that was just painfully pat. I got the distinct impression that the author came up with all of his conclusions before he did any of the interviews.
Posted by: V. | January 31, 2005 at 09:09 AM
There's nothing like being part of a story to make you realize how the press gets so much wrong. I was once interviewed by the Times and they totally made up quotes about the DUMBEST stuff. It made me realize that if they could get something that small and simple wrong, imagine what's going on with the big stories.
Posted by: Cat | January 31, 2005 at 09:19 AM
I think V. is right, Hochman's editor decided that moms blog to relieve their bitterness and rage and instructed him to dig until he got quotes from us that would support his whaddaya call it -- slant. Hence I blog because I am resentful! Of . . . things!
Posted by: Mrs. Kennedy | January 31, 2005 at 11:23 AM
Man, what a misogynist. If men were writing these blogs, they'd be patting each other on the back. What assholes. Never mention how funny and human you guys are. Now I'm pissed, dammit.
Posted by: G. mcFuzz | January 31, 2005 at 11:32 AM
Also we're obsessive about our 2 year old's sexuality.
Wow, I really am self absorbed. I can't even leave my whining on my website...I bring it to the Brady's.
Posted by: melissaS | January 31, 2005 at 12:48 PM
Hi Alice:
I got the name right: www.braintique.com/research/mt-archives/000042.shtml.
Here are some pix of my kids: www.bearhome.com/kids/
Great blog, keep it up!
Best wishes,
Harold
Posted by: Harold Davis | January 31, 2005 at 01:18 PM
read the article, was interested after reading dooce.com this morning. Anyway, you are all fabulous, regardless of what blogless reporter says!
Posted by: shan | January 31, 2005 at 01:23 PM
Wow, I realized something today after reading that article - idiots even exist at the NY times! :)
Posted by: mel | January 31, 2005 at 02:08 PM
After reading the Times article, I checked out Finslippy just because I live down the street in Cobble Hill and I wanted to see what another mom was saying in the neighborhood. I laughed so hard about the Morrissey song that I almost forgot I have been locked up in this ice castle I call my apartment with a 7 week old, eating oatmeal and other bland foods while I function as a human milk truck. Ditto on the Rufus comments (I have it on now), but now I have to go because the bouncy seat that has allowed me to even consider writing this has lost it's luster for my daughter.
Posted by: mamma meg | January 31, 2005 at 04:46 PM
i spent more time than i care to acknowledge reading the blogs mentioned by the times' piece -- and i'm not an ee cummings wannabe; it takes at least one hand to operate a breast pump. i can't decide if i should feel guilty at the pleasure i took in all this. afterall, daycare is ahuge expense! but i keep wondering. why all the fuss? most of the bloggers ARE good writers. but a little thin-skinned. come on, are we all too narciscistiic to recognize narcicism when it stares us in the face?
Posted by: Sarah | January 31, 2005 at 05:08 PM
You know, the term narcissism is being tossed all around, and no one seems to have any idea what it means. And I'm not pointing a finger at you, Sarah, but geez, someone get out a dictionary and have some clue as to what they're talking about before they open their mouths (or start typing)...
Posted by: alice | February 01, 2005 at 10:27 AM
It could have been worse. It could have been Alexander Brady. I keep getting Mr. attached to my name. Because, gender-wise, Liz is so confusing.
Posted by: Liz | February 01, 2005 at 02:19 PM
Remember, Al Sharpton once referred to me in a televised debate as James Brady. Something about that damn "l" that goes right over people's heads...
Posted by: bro | February 01, 2005 at 07:13 PM
Remember, Al Sharpton once referred to me in a televised debate as James Brady. Something about that damn "l" that goes right over people's heads...
Posted by: bro | February 01, 2005 at 07:13 PM
There is SOMETHING about those two names...Brady vs Bradley. I am a BRADY and I have spent my entire life correcting the mulitude of people who insist on saying Bradley....Receptionists, teachers, telemarketers you name it, it always comes out Bradley! Then again after I correct them, there is always the question of whether or not I have a sister named Marcia....the grass is never greener.....
Posted by: Ms. Brady | February 02, 2005 at 12:39 AM
indeed, a dictionary helps. my spelling was off.
Posted by: Sarah | February 02, 2005 at 01:23 PM
Demand a correction by the NYTimes, dammit!
Posted by: Anne-Whitney | February 02, 2005 at 09:00 PM
Do you know where the kids are, Alice? Marsha just got hit in the face with the basketball.
Anyway, we all think your excellent, no matter what they SAY your name is!
Posted by: Em | February 03, 2005 at 06:32 PM
Alice,
I've been reading you for awhile, I also read Mimi Smartypants and Dooce. Jennifer Weiner is one of my favorite authors (after Nora Roberts and Mil Millington).
I don't have kids and I don't want them. But I know funny when I read it. I think you are all great authors. I have come across a ton of blogs that I am not interested in, either so-called "mommy" blogs or not, and I've found it's not whether or not you have kids that makes the difference, it's how you write. Keep up the great work.
As to whether blogging is narcissist (ha, I spelled it right without a dictionary! I'm so proud of myself), I guess that means I must be, as well. Although I have not recently starved to death, staring at my reflection in a pool of water while a nymph tries to get my attention, so maybe not.
Posted by: DM | February 04, 2005 at 01:03 AM
the brady bunch! :)
Posted by: kat | February 04, 2005 at 05:29 PM
Well, Merriam Webster Online says narcissism is a love or sexual desire for oneself. In a more modern psychological sense, I *think* it means a self-adsorption that is intense enough that it impairs a person's ability to understand other people's feelings and to empathize.
I thought that article was depressingly misogynist.
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