Do I Dare Accept a Piece of the Pie?

In a few days, I will start running BlogHer ads on my site. Am I selling out? Absolutely not. I have already specified those companies whose ads I will refuse to run. These are companies whose practices I feel are at best unethical and at worst abusive.

Six months ago I started writing. After almost twenty years of floundering, despairing that I'd never find paid work about which I was passionate, I figured out that I should start with the thing I love and go from there. Such a simple notion, yet so difficult for me to understand.

I am consumed by writing. I would skip meals to write. I do not stop writing because the clock strikes five. I write instead of watching TV. I write because I want to write. I never tire of writing.

This is it, folks. This is what I will be doing for the rest of my life. And if someone wants to read what I write, should I feel ashamed? If someone asks to buy a collection of my essays, should I decline? Of course not.

Ads, if rather trivially, support a capitalist agenda. But if I manage to write a book someday, the acts of getting it published and getting it distributed in bookstores would be supporting the very same capitalist agenda, no?

I am proud of my writing. I cannot fathom why I would ever view getting paid for something at which I work so hard as somehow corrupting my artistic integrity.

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I am beginning to believe that there have only ever been two kinds of bloggers. [EDITED TO ADD: It was Mom-101 who first articulated this position.] There are those who started to blog because they wanted to find a like-minded and supportive community with which to interact. And there are those like me. I started blogging because I wanted to write. The community aspect, when first I discovered it, threw me for a loop. I adore it, I really do. I cannot believe how many kindred spirits I have found in the blogosphere. But for me, the community, though wonderful and unexpected and nurturing, is a fringe benefit. Emphasis on the benefit.

And emphasis on the fringe. Does that make you angry?

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I wonder whether I will lose some of my audience when BlogHer ads appear on my site. It may happen. But I think it would be a shame. And here's why. I am committed to continuing:

*To write daily (give or take);
*To write clearly;
*To write thoughtfully;
*To write beautifully, to the extent that I am capable of doing so.

Will you enjoy my writing (assuming you do) any less because there is a Gerber baby food ad on my sidebar?

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For almost ten years now, I have not earned an income. I have been doing the unpaid but critical work of raising my children. My husband has been bringing home the bacon. And though he unconditionally supports my decision to stay at home with the boys, there are subtle dynamics that exist in our marriage, dynamics created, or at least encouraged, by the lopsidedness of our earning power. When I feel like buying some new clothes, do you think that I don't have questions borne of financial dependence running through my head, questions like, Will he think this is a frivolous purchase?

It's time for me to earn my own money. It is perhaps long past time. I expect that my children will benefit from seeing that I have worth beyond my value to them, that being their mother does not preclude me from embracing other roles.

I am walking, head held high, into a paradigm shift that will impact my sons and my husband, a paradigm shift that I am orchestrating. This, then, is what it is to turn forty. And I say, Bring it on.