what is m0m bL0g?

mom blog is a project by the writer and professor Olivia Dunn (me), started in the early pandemic as a way to feel less alone in early motherhood. Come for the thorny and undignified descriptions of toddler parenting; stay for the book recommendations, dry humor, and most of all, the misty-eyed sentimentality. mom blog is perfect phone reading when you’re up at 3am for any reason, a refuge from the social media doom scroll. Here you will find no clever hacks, no parenting advice—only monthly meditations on modern mom life.

Posts over a month old are paywalled, to protect some of my privacy, but here are a few old classics to read over if you’re curious:

“On Boredom,” wherein I discuss the different flavors of boredom someone might feel while at home with a very young child

“On Ungratefulness,” wherein I discuss how much I hated our trip to Lake George last year

“On Ambition,” wherein I discuss an episode of Queer Eye, and somehow tie in Emily Dickinson

“On Feeling Like a Real Mom,” wherein I discuss all the ways I (and other parents) have felt that undeniable flash of reality: we are doing this!

who am I?

The kind of mom who wishes she had more free time for writing, the kind of mom whose car interior is coated in a thick paste of mashed up string cheese, the kind of mom who loves her life but exists in a perpetual state of longing: maybe we weren’t meant to parent like this. I’m interested in loneliness, community, care, and what exhaustion does to a person… I’m interested in going to the mall, reading murder mysteries, eating ice cream and how the fuck we’re all going to survive [insert crisis].

You can find more of my writing, from before I was a mother, online or in print at McSweeney’s, Entropy, Pine Hills Review, JMWW, The Pinch Journal and Seneca Review. I teach writing at Skidmore College. You can see more from me, sometimes, on instagram.