Next week I’m heading to a marketing conference in Las Vegas to speak on a panel about what moms are looking for when they hit the stores. Besides free full-body massages from Clive Owen with every purchase, of course.

I’m happy for the opportunity and I think it will be great experience – plus um, Vegas? Hello? I have half a mind to bet my remaining 401(k) savings on black. I figure my odds are close to what they’ll be if I let it fester in some mutual fund these days.

So yes, I’m excited. But I must confess — every time I get an email titled Re: Mommyblog Panel I kind of get all squirmy and squidgy inside.

I have spent countless posts exploring my discomfort with the term mommyblog. I hate it hate it hate it. I hate the diminutive. I hate the cutesiness of it all. I hate the fact that before you’ve even read a single post, it makes it beyond easy to dismiss a blog as being less clever/engaging/insightful/important as anyone else’s. (See also: “Oh those mommybloggers have nothing better to do than whine about some stupid Motrin ad.”) I especially hate that I’m being introduced to a roomful of Executives In Dark Suits, some of whom I’ve probably worked with in the past, as a mommyblogger.

Bah.

And then, just like that, spurred on by a twitter chat with Angie and Izzy, it became clear why, all in 140 characters or less:

Mommyblog describes the blogger and not the content.

Tech bloggers blog about tech. Food bloggers blog about food. Fashion bloggers blog about fashion.

I don’t blog about mommies.

(Except, ocassionally, the ones who suck.)

I do blog about parenting. Which, I suppose, makes me a parenting blogger.

That, I can live with.

How about you – love it? Hate it? Want to reclaim it? Want to shave your head and tattoo it across your bald scalp? Let’s call it my once a year check-in and all opinions are welcome. Besides, Executives In Dark Suits may be reading.

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Edited to add: The comments are so amazing! I love hearing how women choose to label themselves and then, how that conflicts with how marketers want to define you. Susan Getgood and Amy in Ohio bring up a wonderful point below about how “mommyblog” is so much about demographics. I think marketers are going to need some new terminology – There are so many kinds of blogging moms out there right now and yet we’re all on the same lists. Some write about politics, some about products, some about sex toys, some about freebies, some about homeschooling, some about health issues, some about design – and they all have “mom” in the title. And don’t forget the blog with dad in the title that’s written by a mom. Oh no! What’s a marketer to doooooo?

Edited again: The folks putting together the conference changed the panel name. It’s now called Marketing to Moms: A panel discussion with top bloggers. How great is that?