Piles of magazines...

I've always been a magazine addict. As a teen I read the Swedish teen magazines Frida, VeckoRevyn etc - oh, what a happy day when mom brought home a new magazine. As a 20something I graduated over to Damernas Värld, Elle (and I admit - I'm still a subscriber...). Then I was going to get married and I still have piles of those bridal magazines. And since I then lived in the US, I had the pleasure of reading both Swedish and American glossy wedding magazines.

Now that I'm a mom, I'm exploring all the parenting magazines, always picking up the latest issues of the Swedish ones when in Sweden and subscribing to a bunch of American ones. I don't want to miss anything! So now I'm sitting here surrounded by piles of magazines (because of course I still subscribe to the ones I had before I became a parent - I might miss something), hoping that one day, actually read some of them (just like I read Rick Kushman's columns in the SacBee to know what I should have been watching on TV)...

One of the problem is that subscribing to American magazines are ridiculously cheep compared to buy them at the store. If you think you might buy 2-3 issues of the same magazine over a 12 month period, you might as well get a subscription. So that's what I do...

The major American parenting magazines are Parents and Parenting.



I'm not really sure I can see a difference... I don't know which magazine was first, Parents or Parenting, but I sure wonder about the creativeness of the team trying to come up with a name for the competitor of the first... Right now I'm subscribing to Parents. Or is it Parenting...?

The major Swedish parenting magazines, or should I say, the ONLY ones, since Sweden with its 9 millions inhabitants is not really constitution a major market is Vi föräldrar and Föräldrar & Barn. And those of you understanding Swedish can see that creativity wasn't really much of an issue for the team naming these magazines either...

Since I became a mom 3 years ago, I'm part of the "mama-generation". The generation that get to read the Swedish mommy magazine mama ! But since subscribing to it from here is more expensnsive than getting 10 American magazines, I've been trying to find the eqvivalence... But there is none...

You can try Working Mothers. But just the title... "working"... hm... where is the glamour?? I like it (of course I subscribe...) but it's more like Parents and Parenting just a bit more focused on the balance between working and being a mom...

And there is Pink of course. But that is more about being a working woman, not
about the glamorous part of being a mother (because of course it is! isn't it? no??). I like this one too (but then I AM a magazine addict so it takes a lot for me NOT to like a magazine...).

Then last year, Cookie magazine showed up in the magazine stands and I got my hopes up! The magazine's tag line is "mom style, kid culture". But... hm... mabye a bit too much... I don't know... but none of the kids clothes shown in this magazine retails for less than $100 and then we're talking t-shirts... This is actually one I don't subscribe too. But who knows next season...

So I'm just going to nag anyone coming to visit from Sweden to bring me a mama magazine. And some Swedish "smågodis". And then I'm going to make myself a nice cup of tea and just sit back, relax and enjoy being a glamorous mom!