Do I look like an idiot? Or: #DearPR...

Dear PR,

let me start by saying that today has not been the least stress-free day I've ever known.  It's not your fault that I'm crawling, bloodied but unbowed, towards the end of Week 3 of my sons' 10 week summer holiday, that our compound now resembles nothing so much as a ghost town without a single other child for them to play with, or that they spent this morning squabbling and fighting in the back of the car both ways during a trip to the supermarket that took four hours from the moment we left the house to the moment we returned. Not your fault; I know that.

Neither is it your fault that I lost it with the Boys only half a mile from home, pulled over and gave them a good talking to, insisting in a completely over the top 'shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted' manner on complete silence for the remaining 5 minutes of the drive.

I also can't blame you for the fact that Moscow's current heatwave has brought the mosquitoes out in high numbers, forcing me to sit here at my desk armed with some heavy-duty Raid to squirt hopelessly at the little blighters as they feast on my shins - again.

And of course it has nothing at all to do with you that right now my hormones are playing havoc with my emotions; possibly if I had received your email this time next week my response would be a little less... shouty.

OK.  None of those things are your fault.

Now let's get onto what is.

Specifically, this:

'Please no not mark the article as 'sponsored' or 'paid for' - if you have a policy on your website to declare third party content, please mark this as a 'Guest Post'"* or "Featured Article".'


I know, Dear PR, that I look but a smidgen of my true age (that's what my bathroom mirror tells me before I put my contact lenses in, anyway).  But do you think I was (expletive deleted) born yesterday?  You are asking me for what is labelled in my rate card as a 'Sponsored' post.  'Sponsored' as in a clear sign that the post has been 'paid for'.  It will be paid for however it's labelled; you know that, I know that.  And bearing in mind that I don't carry "Guest Posts", and have never run a "Featured Article", I strongly suspect that 'The Potty Diaries' readers - who, given their choice of blog are obviously a pretty smart bunch - would be able to work out that it has been paid for too, if I used either of those labels.

May I refer you, in fact, to an excellent post on this very subject from Tots 100? What you are asking me to do - albeit in a small way, but you're asking it all the same - is to break the law.  


The Tots 100 post says; '... the OFT guidelines state that online promotional activity, just like any other promotional activity, must clearly identify when promotions and editorial comment have been paid for, so that consumers are not misled. (if you didn’t know, you can see the OFT guidelines as they relate to bloggers right here)**

So yes, I said 'no thank you' to your kind offer.  The money you were offering would have been very handy, I have to admit, but see that badge on the sidebar?  The one that says 'Brit Mums Blog With Integrity'?

I've moved it further up to make it more visible - in the hope I don't have to deal with this type of nonsense in the future.

***********

Tell me, other bloggers and any PR's who may have read this far; am I a naive idiot?  Or simply a principled blogger?  And what would you have done?


* the triple apostrophe is the PR's own, by the way.

** please click on the link to the original Tots 100 article for the link to the OFT guidelines.

Money Money Money Money - can we change the record, please?

Recently, I have been thinking about Money. More precisely, Money and Stay At Home Mums – of which I am one.

I want to start by saying that I do not for a moment regret putting my career on hold / consigning 18 years of valuable experience to the dustbin (delete as appropriate) when I made the choice 5 years ago to take a break from full-time paid employment. It has given me the chance to spend some fantastic time with my children, and it made our family’s decision to up sticks and move temporarily to Russia so much simpler.

But.

I hate, hate, HATE not earning my 'own' money. And it’s really starting to get me down.

In these recession-laden times our family is, like most, counting the pennies. Like most with one stay-at-home partner, we have those breakfast-time conversations, the ones that start with ‘You know that x amount which is supposed to last us all month? Well, I know it’s only such and such a date, but I need some more...’, which then move on to ‘And no, I’m not spending it all on chocolate and lattes’, stopping briefly at ‘When was the last time YOU did the supermarket shop?’, and which finish up with ‘So can you transfer some more to my account before you leave for work?’, all before your other half has even opened his mouth to say ‘Yes, sure, let me get straight to it.’

You see, the problem with this arrangement – the one where my husband goes out to a place of employment and is paid a salary, whilst I do the more domestic-based tasks, which involve - amongst other things - spending the money, is not his attitude; it’s mine.

I find it really difficult to actually bring myself to discuss any shortfall in funds in a timely manner. For some reason, whilst logically I know that what Husband earns is as a result of our joint efforts and so consequently should qualify as our salary rather than his, it seems that deep down in a basement somewhere in my subconscious, I don’t really believe that. How else to account for the way that I put off discussing the fact that I require additional cash – and put it off, and put it off – until, like some recalcitrant teenager holding their hand out as they leave for school, I need it not next week, not tomorrow, but now-RIGHT-NOW? Not the most mature approach, I think you’ll agree.

For those of you who are thinking ‘Why not just go out and get a job?’ believe me, I've considered it - from every angle. Unfortunately, leaving aside any concerns I might have about the standard of childcare available here (over my dead body), living where we do the cost of a nanny/housekeeper to do all the jobs that I wouldn’t be able to if I were working outside the home would just about cancel out any financial gains I might make. It simply doesn’t make any sense.

So I scrape together what I can through the blog, freelancing and copy editing and so on but frankly, it isn’t much (not even enough to get taxed on) and seems to disappear the moment it hits my bank account.

Something has to change, whether it’s my getting more savvy at marketing my particular skill-set (writing, blogging, marketing, and hunting down suppliers of decent cheddar and chocolate in Moscow), or finally finishing the novel currently lurking at the bottom of list of priorities and selling it for a six-figure sum to the publishing houses all avidly waiting for me to send it off to them.

Hmm. Not a big ask, surely. Or perhaps I should just buy cheaper cheese and chocolate...?