Kathy Buckworth Is Telling Moms To Lower The Parental Bar In Her Latest Book, The Blackberry Diaries

Celebrity Parents recently spoke with author (and Funnywoman!) Kathy Buckworth about her latest book, The Blackberry Diaries. The mom of four talked about the Supermom myth, her love affair with her Blackberry, and how all moms should lower the parental bar.

Let’s talk a bit about your background.

I worked in corporate marketing before I hung up my briefcase and picked up my pen. I like to say that I turned my maternity leave into an e-ternity leave! It’s been fantastic, though.  I left the corporate world just after I had my fourth child. I had written a series of articles about how hard it was to juggle career and family. I always felt like I left the office too early, but got home too late. I could never find the balance.

What was the impetus for The Blackberry Diaries?

The Blackberry Diaries grew from the first three books I had written. My husband gave me a Blackberry to stop me taking his. It quickly became my fifth child, which I like a lot better than my other four! [laughs] It’s my constant companion; it takes everything out of my mommy brain and it makes it easy for me to remember it all. It also satisfies my old corporate urge to organize everything. I wrote the book as a series of blog entries; it was more in keeping with what happened with my first year with my Blackberry.

People tend to name their electronics. I’ve named my cameras. Did you name your Blackberry?

Yes, I named it Seamus.

That’s a great Irish name.

Yes, but now I’m on Seamus II. I upgraded. Too bad you can’t do that with your kids, right?

“Can I get a new one? This one is defective!”

Yeah, this one doesn’t listen or respond anymore!

[laughs] Do your kids worry that you’ll write about them?

Sometimes. I wouldn’t write anything that would embarrass them. I find that if I include them, they say, “Why did you tell that story?” but if I don’t include them, they ask, “Why didn’t you include me?” You can never win. The good thing is that my daughter Bridgette is writing books of her own, and my older son, Alexander, wants to be a sports journalist. And my oldest daughter, Victoria, just went to college. Despite my efforts, they are all turning out okay.

What has the response been to The Blackberry Diaries?

It’s been great. Moms say to me, “It’s almost like you’re in my house!” I feel that if I’m going through it, a million other moms must be going through it, too. As moms, we try to be Supermoms. We try to keep everything together, but we can’t. I’m all about lowering the bar! There’s a tremendous pressure on women to do everything perfectly all the time. And really, we’re just happy if we have the same number of kids at the end of the day that we had at the beginning of the day!

No Comments Yet

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.