Ever have someone tell you how cool or great something is, and then you try it? If you've ever had a baby or a blog, you might know where I'm going with this....
Work
- They are both a lot of work! You want
one, you think, that looks easy. Sure, I
could do THAT! And then you got one.
Attention - Both are real attention hogs. Babies need to eat and be held and they cry for attention. Blogs are good in that they don't cry, and you can pretty much go weeks and weeks (and WEEKS) ignoring them, but like babies, they can kinda die if you don't pay enough attention to them.
Money - Babies are EXPENSIVE. I mean, those suckers need diapers, food, clothes, toys, gear. Blogs don't need too much--unless you want them to really grow in which case you can drop a decent dime on advertising, custom names, web design and more. Basically if you want either of them to grow at all, it's probably gonna cost you.
Time - Like attention and money, the more time you spend on your blog the more it will grow. You can write every day if you HAVE the time or you can write once a week (or less, ahem), but writing is not the only time-consuming blogging activity. Social media probably wins that one. Babies, on the other hand, are pretty much exclusive time-sucks. You can't spend time on the baby just once a week, although like your blog, you may spend a major amount of time pimping them out on social media.
Social Media - Social media can be a wonderful way to share your baby and your blog with the world. I often shared photos and updates about my baby with family and friends through social media. Similarly, my family and friends are frequently bombarded updated with my blog on social media. Now if they would just get the word out, I'd have tons of other people to bother and I'd hardly notice when they stop paying attention.
Pride - Of course everyone is proud of their baby. Even ugly babies have proud parents. Just like giving birth, writing can involve much pacing, sweating, cursing and pushing. And ultimately when we are proud of what we wrote, it is scary to put it out there and risk our blog-baby being called "ugly"--even if it is only by some anonymous internet troll.
So whether you planned to have a baby, or
start a blog, or just sort of stumbled into one or the other, they can both be
a lot of work but both are very rewarding.