When I got two emails in the same hour from people offering up guest content on topics that aren’t related to what I discuss here on the Attachment Parenting Blog, I started to wonder…
Here’s the first of ’em:
“I have been looking for parenting blogs that are interested in guest content. I like the honest approach that you implement in your posts. Very refreshing. I feel that I could add to this through a guest blog post.
“I am very interested in writing about the benefits of giving your children chewable vitamins.
“It will be 350 words of unique content and I can assure you that it will be very well written.
Please let me know if you are interested in something like this.
The benefit of chewable vitamins? Uhm, sounds a lot like what they want to write, and very little about what I believe you want to read, dear readers…
Here’s the other email I got:
“I notice you’ve accepted guest posts on the Attachment Parenting Blog in the past. I was hoping to submit an original post titled, “5 Great Ways to Teach Your Child About Money” to help promote one of our websites.”
I guess it’s my own darn fault, though, because here I am trying to keep an interesting daddy blog on the challenges – and joys – of parenting three kids as a single dad who is also committed to a hands-on attachment parenting philosophy, but just like so much with parenting, I don’t always have time to write here.
My lazy approach? Invite a guest post or two. And so one post out of a few dozen end up being written by someone else and I know very well that they’re not doing it out of a sense of philanthropy, they’re doing it to get that all-important link, the pointer to their own site. Quid pro quo, I get free content, they get a link.
The issue: is the content really serving you, the reader?
I fear that the answer has become more and more that they aren’t serving your interests when you come to this blog to learn a bit about attachment parenting, to learn about the travails and pleasures of single dadhood, etc. Chewable vitamins? I don’t think so.
Here’s what I’m going to do in terms of guest posts: I’m not going to accept them any more on this blog.
If you have a topic just dying to get out, pitch me that I should interview you instead. If you’re a friend, well, my friends get special privileges anyway, and if one of you want to borrow my pulpit and write about an aspect of parenting that’s in alignment with what I believe and espouse, then we’re cool, we can do that.
My apologies for straying from that path. I will trust that you’ll be okay if I have a slightly less frequent publication schedule as the price we’ll pay for me to refuse free content and keep this blog more “pure” and more my voice rather than a confusing mishmash.
Whaddya think, dear reader? Works for you?
At least the requests are in proper English, unlike the spam links I get 🙂 (My sister posted about packing a lunch for her preschooler and got PARAGRAPHS about the wonders of a certain stainless steel bento box, to found at this site…. ugh 🙂 I think it’s YOUR blog, you do whatever you want!
One of the things that is perfectly clear to those who read you is that you are a source of inside information from the world of a caring (single) dad that can share this experience in an interesting and authentic manner. I would rather read fewer meaningful posts if that is what it takes. Even though I am one of those who had hoped to do a guest post on grand parenting I have to admit the link was part of my motivation. Your loyalty to your readers is not surprising but it is still admirable. Your window into what I call conscious caring parenting is refreshing and kind of neat. NEIL