What's With All the Swearing Mommy Bloggers?

What gives? Is the blogosphere some sort of 5th-grade playground where we need to impress each other with how cool we can be by throwing in the F-word every few paragraphs?

As a journalist for magazines and newspapers for the past 14 years, I've always enjoyed the challenge of coming up with (or at least trying to come up with) just the right word to describe something in an article. And for the publications I work with, profanity isn't an option.

But now that I've been blogging on Parent Talk Today for a year, I've had a chance to check out a LOT of so-called mommy blogs. (I hate the term, but that's what everyone seems to want to call them.) Many are creative, fun, informative and even addictive. But a surprising number of them are written by women who apparently find the need to swear like sailors.

I recently attended the BlogHer conference in San Francisco, and in a final "community keynote," 20 or so women bloggers (and one guy) got up on stage, in front of about a thousand people in a huge ballroom, and read their favorite blog post. (The posts were chosen by a committee in advance. And these weren't all mommy bloggers on stage, but many were.)

Sure enough, a few of the posts contained some pretty raw language. And in looking around the room, I saw mixed reactions. Personally, I was just sad that these otherwise truly talented writers had settled for cheap shock value.

In so many blogs that I've read lately, it just seems as if the writers are taking the lazy way out. But, using the currently popular acronym, WTF do I know?

Yes, yes, yes. Free speech. Freedom of expression. The ability to share our true feelings in our blogs and to tell it like it is. It's all important. But why the potty mouth? Is it necessary?

Hey, sometimes I let loose with a swear word or two in my daily life. (Lately, they seem to be reserved for people who run stop signs.) I'm not advocating that we all become Pollyanna here. But when it comes to writing articles and this blog, I have too much respect for my audience to go there.

So please tell me, if you're a mommy blogger who likes to turn the blogesphere blue fairly frequently: What's the attraction in including the F word (and, in some cases, much more) in your posts?