cyberMUMMY vs cyberWOMAN
Sunday, 26 June 2011 
9 Comments
I learned yesterday that I definitely do not like being in a crowd of 400+ without actually having met anyone before.
I am, however, the kind of person who never walks out on an uncomfortable situation until a mission’s completed, so I battled through the presentations (some quite good ones), chatted to a few cybermummies, and once the official part was over and I met up with the expats I had organised to have dinner with – good times, good times! Finally :)
Fast forward through several glasses of wine (thank you, Naked Wines) and a lot of laughs to sometime past midnight o’clock. As I relayed the day’s events to my husband while for the first time unpacking the one hundred million bags of freebies I had acquired – I have to say it: I was deeply disappointed.
I realise that the event is called CyberMummy, but it was a bummer that those bags contained nothing for ME - bag upon bag revealed yet another packet of wet wipes and baby bottles and children’s toys and children’s bubble baths… absolutely nothing for me…
I think that the reason that everyone who gathered yesterday blog, is that they want to do something that’s for THEM, something that is something other than days filled with wet wipes and antiseptic lotions.
I dare to think that I’m not the only one who was fantasising about make up samples, bubble baths for grown ups, magazines, books, technical gadgets, etc. etc. etc. … Wet wipes just really don’t do it for me.
Yes, I happen to be a mother, but I existed for a long time before aquiring that label and I never use the label “mother” as the first thing to describe me… first comes my nationality, the places I’ve lived, the subject that I studied, the type of job that I’ve been doing for the past 11+years, my hobbies, my interests, my husband of 10+years…
Perhaps I am the only one feeling like that or perhaps I was the one who got all the “wrong” goodie bags?!?!?! (OR perhaps I should stop whing about FREE stuff?!?!?!)
But, but but - I WILL end on a good note:
I did learn new things and I signed up to Twitter (@crankymonkeys) mid conference after hearing I was just about the only one out of 400 not yet on Twitter (:|) and I did meet some great people, with a special mention to all my fellow expat ladies: The American Resident, Stay At Home Babe, Expat Mum, Lisa Gusto, Iota Quota, Metropolitan Mom, Momma on the Rocks – you ladies made my day :D
Probably the worst iPhone photo of post conference party. All the good photos are here.
Oh my gosh! I ranted and raved to my husband about my time with you ladies at the expat gathering afterward as well. Totally made the day. That and my six packs of Detol Wipes, two packs of wet wipes and three bottle of baby wash.
Wait, no not really. THe things I loved the most from my goodie bag were the shoes I snagged for myself from Crocs and the two jump drives I got from a couple of sponsors with their catalogues on them (Crocs again–they rocked it!, and Johnson’s Baby). Although, my husband snagged the Crocs drive so I’m down one already.
I actually said that to my husband. I thought HP missed the mark with their stuffed Hippos. I thought yeah, that’s cute, but maybe have a SD card around its neck… you know, for our CAMERAS that we’re using to take all those pictures we might need to print on the HP photo printers you were promoting????
I like that I got stuff for my kids that they enjoyed so when I got home from my first weekend away from them, I felt less guilty when I gave them some gifts… but, I agree… a little bit more for the woman who was taking a day for herself (which is what most of us were doing), would have been awesome.
Six packs of Detol Wipes! :| :|
To my surprise, my 6-year old loves the stuffed toy that was in the Disney bag, he thinks it’s a Moshling… I think it’s actually some random “blob” but he loves that thing! The LeapFrog toy goes down well with the little one, but in general electronic toys drive.me.mad so I’m not sure how long this one will stay in the household :P
Great post i wondered what i was missing out on,gosh how much stuff did you get! sounds like a fun night,i would have found it so hard at first until the wine was flowing :)
There was lots of stuff! You could have walked away with basically as much as you could have physically carried… mind you – most of the stuff was for babies :| so I said no to quite many goodie bags (only to discover those darn wet wipes in the ones I did pick up!) I just wish I had won that iPad… or the holiday to Disneyland in the States… Not being greedy or anything :)
It was really really good to put faces to blogs and I am so pleased you were able to make the expat dinner!!
It is a good point about the freebies mostly being for kids. I would add that there were few if any gifts for older kids. I was relieved to get a Tangled DVD because my youngest (13 yo) actually really loves that movie, but I ended up leaving behind a load of stuff–baby bottles, dummies, cuddly toys…
And happy to see you on Twitter now as well! :)
THANK YOU for getting the expats together!
Good post. Sadly too many companies see women bloggers, particularly those with children as Mummies first and not as women.
Sounds like an interesting conference, would have loved to join you (particularly the expat group) if I could have gotten there.
Yes, and yes, and yes. What was it with the wet wipes?
And quite apart from the whole ‘mummy’ vs ‘women’ thing, which I’m completely with you on, why does ‘mummy’ automatically mean ‘baby’? I was constantly saying ‘My youngest child is 6′ and having sponsors look at me as if wondering why I was there.
Great to meet you. Really enjoyed the evening, and was only sorry to leave early.
I actually cheated (having been to CM last year), and opened up my goody bag in the foyer of The Brewery. I took out the bottle, 3 packs of wipes, baby toy, bubble bath, stretch-mark cream (too late for me on that one, I think!), and left them on a table. With my overnight bag, I already had plenty to carry!