Parenting Online - Families, Blogs and Social Media

Join three of Vancouver's most sleep-deprived parenting bloggers to get their take on blogging and parenthood. During the 45-minute panel session on Saturday afternoon they'll cover a broad variety of issues that come up when you combine family and social media. For instance, how much information do they share about their kids and how does being active online impact family life? And is parent blogging actually a legitimate career, or just a hobby to pursue between playdates and driving carpool?

Parent-blogging is very female-dominated. The panelists will explore why that is, and what it says about both families and social media. They'll also discuss whether the parent blogging experience differs for mothers and fathers, and how. They'll touch on how parent bloggers of both genders are viewed in the broader blogging community, and whether they're treated as second-class citizens or viewed less seriously than other bloggers.

It's time to pull the families out of Northern Voice's unsupervised childcare room, and hear what they have to say.

Speakers: Amber Strocel, Kerry Sauriol and Vincent Marra. Moderator: Arieanna Schweber 

Amber Strocel
Amber is an all-around crunchy granola mama to two kids. She describes herself as a writer, engineer and dreamer. In her extremely rare and precious free time she grows vast quantities of cucumbers, attempts handcrafts and eats rather a lot of chocolate. She chronicles her life on her blog at Strocel.com, which she has been writing since May 2003, and which was named March Blog of the Month in Canadian Living. Through blogging, she has found inspiration and support, leading her to create an online course for parents called Crafting my Life. Her experiences have made her believe in the power of social networking to bring people together.

Kerry Sauriol
Having discovered that children don’t give annual employee evaluations, Kerry Sauriol jumped at the chance to be a stay-at-home mom. Now, with three kids, Kerry’s hold on sanity is her computer and the world of mommy bloggers. Crunchy Carpets is where she shares her life and parenting experiences. She created Wet Coast Women to discuss everything west coast and build up a community for women bloggers. 

Vincent Marra
Vincent at The Dad Jam is a Vancouver father of two beautiful kids, aged 5 and 2.5, and husband to a beautiful wife, whose age shall remain undisclosed.  When he’s not hanging with his kids at playgrounds around Vancouver, he is either spending time with his wife, exercising, drinking tall mochas, blogging, reading, creating a new website, working his day job, or trying to get some much needed sleep.  You can visit him and keep up with his daddy antics at thedadjam.com.

Arieanna Schweber

Arieanna Schweber was Canada's first female professional blogger. She has been professionally blogging since 2006 and worked as Senior Entertainment Editor for b5media where she managed a team of 40 writers managing 70 online communities. Arieanna has a degree in Business / Communications from SFU and continues to build communities part time for Vancouver-based clients and for herself at ActiveMama.com and GilmoreNews.com.