And that is the truth.

However, this post might not lead you where you think it might be going.

Let me explain.

I am a blogger that is known for having wider boundaries when it comes to information I share and things I write. And some of the posts that have been the most difficult for me to pen are those that shine a light on a part of my makeup or psyche or behavior that is shameful and embarrassing to me. However, these kinds of posts are also the ones I feel the most passionately about publishing because I think they can be the most helpful to other people who are also in the same(ish) situations.

Some of my best ‘light bulb moments’ have come from the words of another blogger.

One thing we parent bloggity types (known as “mommy bloggers” in many circles) are known for is being very vocal and passionate (and often times DOWN RIGHT MEAN AND NAAAASTY) about our opinions and about advocating for causes and things that we deeply believe in. And there are few things that this community of women are more passionate and vocal about than breastfeeding. It has been endlessly blogged about by women who are much more articulate than I and the community can get, well, rather heated about it. (See above MEAN AND NAAAASTY comment.) Even though I did write about my decision to bottle feed our youngest this is one of the topics I put in the “Oh, HELL no!” category when I think about writing about it.

But something happened yesterday that has upset me a great deal.

For many different reasons.

And now?

I’m writing about it.

My best friend, Kim, was trying to get her children out of the scorching Texas heat, so she took them to her local YMCA (Twin Lakes YMCA, to be exact) to swim. She was sitting on the steps of the baby pool watching her 2-year-old swim and was nursing her tiny baby while wearing a maternity tankini swimsuit that left a small bit of her side skin exposed on one side.

Not her breasts.

Her side.

And?

She was asked to leave the pool.

Because her breast milk might “contaminate” it.

While she was eventually allowed her right under Texas law to breastfeed wherever she and her baby are allowed to be, she is now asking that the YMCA have a written policy to better educate their staff and employees not just about state laws but about breastfeeding in general. (NOTE: If you would like to help, or learn more about what happened you can find out more about everything on her blog post. And I loved Kim’s statement “Please be kind and remember we are trying to educate not inflame. Together we can peacefully make a change for the better.” .)

When we were on the phone a few hours later we talked about what happened and I referred to a comment on I read on her 70+ comment Facebook status about it. It was a comment I understood all too well.

“ I’m so sorry this happened to you and I totally understand your points but you do have to realize that breast feeding does make some people feel uncomfortable.”

I told her, “I am totally glad that was not my comment to you!”. And Kim agreed and replied that she was “surprised by the amount of support I showed online’ because ”I know you and the reactions you’ve had to public breastfeeding”.

We’ve talked about it a great deal, see.

And while Kim knows that even though I FULLY AND TOTALLY SUPPORT THE RIGHTS OF MOTHERS TO NURSE WHENEVER, WHEREVER AND HOWEVER THEY WISH TO AND KNOW THAT ANY PROBLEMS I HAVE ABOUT IT ARE MY ISSUES AND MINE ALONE AND THOSE HANG UPS SHOULD NOT IMPACT A MOTHER AND HER RIGHT TO NURSE, she ALSO knows that inside I have struggled with my reactions to it in the past. And that I still have those reactions to some degree.

This is a comment I made almost 3-years ago on a blog post written by my very dear friend, Catherine, about how she had been shamed by a fellow mother while she was nursing her infant in a library.

Loralee Choate
Aug 9, 2008

…As for the nursing, I would never expect a nursing mom to go into another room to nurse. EVER. It is such a hard job, and the baby’s needs come first. However, I also appreciate it highly when discretion is used. Although I would never say anything, I get uncomfortable when I see women just whip it out with no effort to be at least a little discreet. I truly have tried my best to have it not, but there it is.

It’s kind of like…peeing??? It’s a very necessary function that is carried out by life-giving organs that are also sexually functional. I would never hold needing to urinate against someone as it is completely necessary and vital but if it has to happen in an area where there is no restroom (and all of us have been there at some point), try not to flash your groovy bits too much?

Yeah.

I know.

I was stupid.

Not only did I write one of the most cliched and disliked comparisons out there in regards to breastfeeding (read the Google search for it, y’all) but I literally cannot believe the lack of support I showed not just to my friend, but a fellow mother.

This was Catherine’s reply to me.

A reply that was very kind and understanding. A reply that by its very nature started a huge change in me from that moment on. When I read her words about how ashamed and weary she felt trying to nurse her baby at a conference, I myself attended and felt exhausted by, I wanted to curl into a ball of shame myself for my inward reaction of “YES, BUT I AGREE WITH THE WOMAN SHAMING YOU.”

What an ass.

I feel bad about it to this day.

And yet?

…I still have this knee-jerk, ingrained reaction to the subject to a point.

STILL.

I have NO IDEA WHY.

As y’all have sussed out, I am not exactly a prude.

For example, I have NO PROBLEM posting a photo of myself like this on my blog:

But somehow the thought of a woman out in public breastfeeding without covering up can still send me into a moment of “GAH!?”

I mean LOOK! LOOK AT KIM AND THIS PUBLIC DISPLAY OF INDECENCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am showing WAY more boob than she is.

I am showing WAY more boob than she did sitting on the steps of the pool when she nursed her baby.

In fact, most mothers who nurse without covering up nurse very modestly. Most mothers, even those who don’t cover up or don’t mind public nursing at all, are not out to flaunt their ta-tas to everyone. To scar children. To arouse teenagers and men who are innocently passing in the direction of her lactation.

They just want to feed their baby.

SO WHAT IS YOUR DAMAGE, LORALEE? WHY DO YOU EVEN HAVE A HINT OF REACTION LEFT IN YOUR BODY AT THIS POINT.

Honestly?

I have no freaking idea.

Dude, I seem to have both a lot of pride and shame tied up into my titties.

It’s confusing.

And it bothers me a lot.

WAY more than the thought of public nursing, in fact.

I could theorize until the cows came home why it still happens from time to time but I STILL don’t have a good answer for you than there are still times that I STILL think “Nursing in public=EEK!!!! Can’t you just…just…um…cover up a little??!”

The squeemish feeling doesn’t last long.

And logically I KNOW BETTER.

I don’t know if I will ever have a good answer for either you or myself.

Like my friend, Kim, writes in her blog post today, “I have stopped asking why people are so uncomfortable with breastfeeding.  This is an answer I will never fully receive.  I know people are uncomfortable, but that is their issue, not mine.”

And she is 100% correct, folks.

It’s hard to be this honest about this hang up I have, people.

But I think if people didn’t fess up to the things they struggle with, the world would be a lonely place full of people walking around thinking no one understands them.

And change would likely be harder and come at a much slower pace.

And I have changed on this topic.

A lot.

And that change would have come much slower for me if the Kims and Annies and Catherines of the world had shown me self-righteous anger instead of compassion, patience and understanding.

So, if you feel that a mother should be the one to leave or that she should be required to cover up all burka-like or go to a toilet stall to nurse or if you have compared breastfeeding to public urination, (and I KNOW many, many are out there who have these feelings to different degrees)  know that you have an empathetic ear here that will not judge you for those feelings.

Not at all.

I’ve been there, see.

I’m STILL there a little bit.

BUT…

Nursing mothers should not ‘have’ to cover up.

Nursing mothers should not have to nurse in a toilet stall.

Nursing mothers should not be asked to leave an establishment.

Nursing mothers should not feel shame.

Nursing mothers are not the problem.

My issues about public breastfeeding are.

And all I can do is keep wading through them until they aren’t.

So, if you feel like I did, (and still do?)

I’d you to try something for me.

Please go read Kim’s post.

Or read Catherine’s

Or read Annie’s.

And then run down your list of objections.

And then really, REALLY think about it.

And see if you can look at even one TINY part of the argument inside your head differently.

Even if public breastfeeding makes you uncomfortable.

Especially then.

There has always been a great deal of debate on the subject of when and how bloggers should be compensated by brands for what they do. Making money blogging is not the easiest thing in the world to pull off and very little about it is cut and dried or “one size fits all”. Brands, PR agencies and bloggers all have widely varying policies when it comes to when compensation is appropriate and what that compensation should be.

I attended a blogging conference this weekend in Park City. Evo: The evolution of women in social media, is always a really great time with panels and 3-hour hands-on workshops.

I had a great time.

One of the more interesting (OK, maybe THE most interesting thing) that happened was when I sat in on a panel about working with brands. There were PR people and brand representatives that spoke on how PR agencies, brands and bloggers can all work together and presented case studies on how their brands and agencies utilized blogging and social media.

Evan Miller, Director of Global Communications for Aveda, was last on the lineup.

He did a great job highlighting how the conference co-founder, Jyl Pattee of Mom it Forward (and all around great person) went with the Aveda team on a trip to India to see first hand the things that their brand was doing to help get clean and drinkable water to the population. I followed the social media and blog postings Jyl made while she was on the trip, so I was intrigued to see all of this from Aveda’s point-of-view. It was a great presentation full of really good examples of how social media and blogging can help stretch the reach of a brand’s mission statement.

Then he gave a case study about a campaign they came up with regarding a bottle of one of their top-selling products. A blogger used that product for a month. During that time, they required social media use of Twitter and Facebook, 4 blog posts and a youtube video. Then the blogger hosting the campaign selected a reader to “pass” the product along to and that reader posted 4 posts, a youtube video and had social media engagement. Then THEY ‘passed” the bottle along to another reader. And so on and so on.

Evan said how successful the program was for Aveda.

I remember thinking, “Wow…that’s a lot of work and reader exposure for one product. What is their compensation for it?”

And that’s when things got really interesting.

One phrase uttered by the Aveda rep pretty much turned everything on its head and created the most talked-about panel at the conference. It caught me so off guard and by surprise that I tweeted it:

The fact that Estee Lauder was brought into the mix and the fact that they were joining in with Aveda on this stance didn’t exactly calm things down. (Edited to add that Estee Lauder purchased Aveda in 1997, which makes this united standard on blogging compensation make way, WAY more sense, IMO. But at the time and if you are an average person (like me) that wasn’t aware that EL owned Aveda it sounded like major corporations were forming a mafia and having some back room meetings to sign a beauty corporation Magna Carta of “WE WILL NOT PAY BLOGGERS MONEY” or something.)

And things kind of erupted–both online and in the panel.

I don’t know that I can recall sitting in a panel with so much heated debate, tension and passionate feeling.

It was DEFINITELY the talk of the conference.

The community took over and Mr. Miller didn’t really get a chance to clarify his position and many left feeling confused, impassioned, heated and engaged. On Twitter, people were talking up a storm about it with very strong opinions from PR people…

…and strong feeling, reaction and commentary from bloggers:

“So… after these two great speakers, the third got up there.  Oh boy! Evan Miller from Aveda began speaking about his Company’s philosophy of working with bloggers.  In a nutshell… Aveda does NOT believe in paying bloggers.  Well… one thing you do not tell a room full of bloggers is that you don’t believe in PAYING them for the hard work they do promoting YOUR Company!  Big No No!  There was certainly a hush in the room until Ted Rubin spoke up to defend the blogging process with regards to promoting brands and their products.  Thank you Ted for being our voice.  Needless to say, the incident spread like… well, like a social media wildfire.”

And I left the room still wondering if Aveda wanted all those posts, social media engagement and a video for a bottle of hair goo? (Awesomely effective and insanely delicious smelling hair goo, but hair goo none the less.)

Fortunately, Aveda took to Twitter and said that they would be willing to have a sit down to clarify their policies with anyone who wanted to discuss it. So, I went to The EVO Aveda suite and spoke with Mr. Miller while sipping some of their very delicious water.

Evan was a great guy, very gracious in conversation and he readily agreed that his wording in that panel was poor.

Not only did I appreciate this but I could totally relate.

I felt for him big time.

I mean really, how many of us put things out there or online that we regret or that could have been worded differently?  I DO IT ALL THE TIME. Heck, I totally tweeted that “OMG! ZACH BRAFF IS DEAD?!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” And then promptly felt like an ass and spent the next week of my life apologizing, eating crow and pretty much saying non-stop “GAH! I AM SORRY! HE IS NOT DEAD! I AM A STUPID HEAD THAT FELL FOR A TOTAL INTERNET HOAX AND TWEETED WITHOUT THINKING IT THROUGH!!!!”

(It was awesome.)

Evan did exactly the right thing for Aveda by making himself available and accessible (even on the weekend and off hours) to engage with anyone who had questions. AND I GOT MY QUESTION ANSWERED: YES, they do additional compensation for the month-long campaign that is above the one bottle of product. No, it is not in cash. It is with a gift card to an AVEDA salon.  (I’m not disclosing how much. That is Aveda’s business. I’ll leave it that it was absolutely way more than a bottle of shampoo.)

He also put this quote out to PRCog (see tweet above) about Aveda’s compensation policy for bloggers for PR work:

Since Aveda began working with bloggers *in a PR capacity it has abstained from compensating them with cash payments. Aveda has offered bloggers compensation in the form of Aveda.com gift cards, product, and salon/spa services. Aveda’s digital marketing team has conducted, on occasion, *more extensive campaigns with bloggers in which it has compensated via monetary payment.

See where I bolded, italicized and put an asterisk in his quote?  Those are the little nuggets I wanted to talk more about.

After a lot of wresting with how I feel about compensation (and having several ‘devil’s advocate’ conversations with bloggers/PR people and brand reps alike) I’ve come to some conclusions. To me, and many others, not paying cash for review work and editorials that result in PR buzz is a non-issue.

I don’t mind not having cash compensation for editorial work. There are plenty of other definitions for “compensation” besides cash. Whether or non-monetary compensation for editorial work meshes with your business model as a blogger is, well, up to you.

I also do NOT agree with paid product reviews. I think it creates too much of an ethical issue. Danielle wrote a post when she was at Edelman (now of The Sway Group, below) that had a great quote in it regarding this:

“As a PR practitioner, I have certainly been involved in review campaigns. We have absolutely sent out product to bloggers in the hope that they would write a positive post. However, my team has never paid for reviews. We have never required bloggers to write anything at all in return for the product. When we send out product, do we hope that bloggers like it and write something positive? Sure we do. But we also understand that the most valuable blog post is one that is honest and REAL.”

And frankly, blogging has been mightily hurt by those that would sell their soul for a buck. You know who I am talking about. The greedy. The entitiled. Those that don’t disclose compensation. Those that so completely overvalue themselves and the ROI they can give to a brand (which IS important, people) it’s just plain offensive. The type of blogger that caused a restaurant by the hotel hosting BlogHer ’10 in NYC to put a handmade sign in their window that said, “I DON’T CARE HOW MANY PEOPLE FOLLOW YOU ON TWITTER OR HOW MANY PEOPLE READ YOUR BLOG. WE’RE BOOKED. YOU ARE NOT GETTING A TABLE”. (Yes. For reals. Ask her.) People like this hurt the integrity of the product review. As a blogger I don’t appreciate it. As a consumer that relies heavily on blog reviews for purchasing decisions I appreciate it even less.

But when you get into sponsored and promotional work the game changes.

I THINK MOST SEASONED BLOGGERS ARE FIGHTING FOR MONETARY COMPENSATION FOR SPONSORED WORK.

SPONSORED WORK.

NOT EDITORIAL WORK.

And this is where I think a lot of misunderstanding happens. (I myself am hugely guilty of combining and confusing many PR definitions and jargon in my head.)

So…

What is the difference between editorial and sponsored work? The Sway Group put up a post that had a really general (yet great) definition in it from Kristen Chase with the difference between sponsored and editorial content:

If [they]‘re saying, I’d love to send you product to try to see if this is something you might want to feature on your site = editorial.

If they’re saying “We want you to try this, mention this, tell your readers about this, and include link graphic etc” = sponsored post.

I have done sponsored work for non-monetary compensation. Heck, I’ve done it totally and utterly for FREE.  Because what drives me is the product or the brand, not my pocket book. And some of my best memories and experiences did not come with an amount of dollars in my pocket.

But, I also like to pay my bills with actual money so when I am looking at a PR pitch and program I have some additional qualifiers I ask myself in terms of what payment I need like “Did I help structure the promotion?” “Did I brainstorm to determine ways to further the end goal for the product?” “Did I have to display a widget, graphic, banner or other images given to me by the brand?”, “Did I take time to participate in focus groups?”.

But where I draw the hardest, FASTEST line is when the brand wants to exert some control over the content that I write. That is the biggie for me. (Especially if their legal department gets involved because nothing says. “Holy headache, Batman!” like a corporate legal department. Heh!)

From where I am all “Hey, I love your product! Would love to accept that as compensation BECAUSE AS A BRAND YOU ARE ALREADY INVESTING INTO BLOGGERS” to “I want to work with you because I GENUINELY LOVE YOUR PRODUCT but this is a lot of work for me and a lot exposure to my readers so I will need more than a box of cereal to run the program. Let’s talk!”

And this is where I take issue and had a problem with Aveda:

I think in regards to the particular case study that Aveda provides for us (the month-long campaign where they wanted 4 posts, 1 youtube video and social media engagement) between “Editorial” and “Sponsored” is getting blurred.

As Stephanie Smirnov, President of DeVries PR (and who is my Bible and Personal Jesus when it comes to PR) said this to me on Facebook:

“A product review should never be compensated. If product is given to blogger so she can experience it, fair enough, but she has to disclose she got it for free. That should never carry with it an expectation of multiple posts or other deliverables, though, that blurs into territory of “promotional partner.” in other words, even if brand isn’t dictating outcome of review, the minute they want to control how and where posts appear, that’s going beyond editorial pitching.”

I’m still not entirely sure where I put the program Aveda laid out for us in the panel at EVO in my head. One thing that stops it for me from dumping it square in the sponsored category is that Aveda does not dictate the content at all. There is no ‘key message’ to portray, there is no approval from their legal department, they don’t want certain phrases used.

BUT.

It’s not really pure editorial either.

They DO want deliverables.

They have a set list of how many messages and what medium that message should be delivered to the audience. (And for many bloggers the deliverables expected from Aveda for this campaign would be labeled ’extensive” on the part of the participating blogger.) They want to pay in product to ensure authenticity but doesn’t that mean that should include authenticity of HOW the message is delivered? Would someone authentically post that much about it?

So it’s kind of a mixed ball game with this particular example.

Some bloggers will have a problem with that and their form of compensation.

Some won’t.

It’s Aveda’s prerogative as a company to decide and outline what compensation they give to the bloggers they work with.

And it is a blogger’s prerogative to say, “Sure! BRING ON THE AWESOME HAIR!” or tell them (politely, of course) that as awesome as their shampoo is, you can’t pay your grocery bill in shampoo.

It’s up to you.

And in the end, it’s been GREAT conversation and material for discussion.

:)

And finally?

Zach Braff STILL isn’t dead.

Just so you know.

*Edit: I have no idea who or what prompted the business owner to put that sign in the window in NYC at BlogHer. (And to be clear, BlogHer certainly had nothing to do with it nor do they promote or encourage unethical blogging behavior of ANY kind. :) )

P.S. I have been a loyal Aveda products and salon customer since 2007. Ask my (fabulous) stylist.

Thank you so much for all the links and input when I asked about homeschooling.

And…

(deep breath)

We’re going for it.

As soon as possible.

If it goes as scheduled, we will be homeschooling Christopher on Monday morning.

Seems very fast, right?

Yes and no.

We have been playing around with this as an option for years. I started being exposed to alternative forms of education when I took a leap and put my eldest into the valley’s first charter school in 1st grade. I found myself paying rapt attention when she decided to homeschool a few years ago and read her posts about it often. Since the middle school here is so huge, we have ALWAYS considered homeschool for these years (with a return in high school). And so, I have been turning it over and over like a rusty hamster wheel in the back of my head for a long, long time.  You have to understand how many people we know and that are family that have done this.

We have a lot of support.

My mother was a teacher for 35 years.

My mother-in-law has been a music and orchestra teacher forever.

My sister-in-law homeschools all her children and has for several years.

I could go on, but those are the main sources of support I will be drawing on.

We want to do K-12, but I am not sure there is an open district.

We want to work with a district if possible, but if it isn’t, we have all the curriculum available to us. (Which is an enormous blessing due to amazing inlaws).

It is not going to be a picnic and I will have to simply be better. Better at patience, better at time management, better at organization, better as a blogger, better at efficiency and better as a mother.

My kid is worth it, though.

I’d do anything for him.

Including this.

And looking at all my responsibilities and after many, many conversations and hours looking at it I feel a whole lot better about things and being able to make it work.

Some big helps: My mother-in-law retired from her position as orchestra teacher at my kid’s former charter school so she has offered to take Christopher 2 days a week to cover things like music and so that I can work and focus on Butterlump.  She is the most proficient woman in the world and knows as well as we do that Christophee needs help. It is a huge help in the equation.

We are signing him up for a swim team at our gym for his physical education (or something similar) and he is going to attend orchestra at the charter school next door in the afternoons.

Jonathan works from home so he will have set time with him.  HE IS IN CHARGE OF ALL SCIENCE AND MATH. (Hi, remember me? Girl with a 29 on the ACT and a 13 in math?) Everything else, I am good with handling.

My sister-in-law has offered to coordinate field trips and such with us. There is a strong homeschooling force in our valley and I plan on utilizing it.

My mom will help me as much as she can and I know she has forgotten more about organizing things and being efficient than I EVER possessed since both my parents are super tidy, hardworking and great at time management and things like remembering to get your oil checked before your car engine blows up on you, although sometimes I suspect they  just saw some poor, wayward, chaotic redheaded women in 1970′s pajama pants making theatrical and over-emotional gestures to a sign that said, “Hey, want a baby? I have one!” in a Safeway parking lot, took pity and brought me home with them because EFF ALL if I can figure out how I came from those two.*)

(It was a compliment to my parents, people.)

So, really, I have so much help and resources available to me.

Heck, I HAVE THE UNENDING KNOWLEDGE AND PATIENCE OF THE INTERNETS! (Ironically, Ree was sitting next to me when Jonathan texted me asking what I thought about homeschooling and she totally gave me a big thumbs up. Nice vote of confidence, that.)

So, really, what more do I need? ;)

I’m actually very excited about this.

NERVOUS AS ALL GET OUT, but excited.

Mainly, I want my child to feel better about himself, education and learning.

And I am very hopeful that we can make this happen for him.

Wish me luck.

*I probably shouldn’t teach him that run-on sentences are cool, right?