Mommy blogger queen’s story warns us about the importance of community.

Remembering Dooce: A Critical Assessment of Her Legacy

The Life and Death of Heather Armstrong

Last week, Heather Armstrong, known to most by the internet handle “Dooce,” passed away. Her fame had dimmed somewhat in recent years, but she was once an internet sensation that The New York Times dubbed “Queen of the Mommy Bloggers,” and, upon her death, they have proclaimed her “the original influencer.”

But as a public figure and writer, Armstrong was resolutely snarky and unflinching even when her targets didn’t deserve what she had done to them, so forgive me if I offer my own critical assessment of her legacy.

Her Writing and Personal Obsessions

Armstrong was naturally quite public about her struggles with mental health. Much of her writing as a “mommy blogger” was just observational and if you like “topics such as breast milk pumps, golf cart rides with Norah Jones, and the one guy I dated who talked like Elmo during sex,” her blog was the sort of thing you will like. But she also had personal obsessions that defined her.

Armstrong was raised in a Mormon family in Utah and attended Brigham Young University before leaving the church. Her outspokenness here caught my attention because I’m also an ex-Mormon. Which is not to say that I related much to what she had to say about leaving the church, it’s just more that I’m acutely sensitive to the performative bitterness that so many other ex-Mormons indulge in.

Her Legacy and Feminism

Armstrong tempered her strident tendencies by throwing herself into being a wife and mother. However, she was also filling that community void with progressive politics and a hunger for public affirmation. Speaking as someone who is more familiar with life as a public figure than I would like to be, without healthy countervailing forces in your private life, things can get overwhelming.

It seemed to me that the author of a book titled Things I Learned About My Dad (in Therapy) maybe didn’t always have a handle on balancing public and private.

But despite these silly pronouncements, what separated Dooce from so many similar people in her position, be they confessional bloggers or angry former church members, were the undercurrents of genuine self-awareness that slipped out.

Her Struggles with Mental Health

Her depression issues were so severe that she at one point voluntarily submitted herself to dangerous experimental treatments that repeatedly induced “brain death” in a desperate attempt to escape the anguish. To the extent the pain was beyond her control, the faith I eventually found that she so publicly struggled with tells me “if He causes grief, Then He will have compassion according to His abundant loving kindness.”

We’ll miss you, Dooce.

• Mark Hemingway is the Book Editor at The Federalist, and was formerly a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. Follow him on Twitter at @heminator

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