Hi there, @Alison_Wade and welcome to the Community 
Thank you so much for sharing your use case!
I completely understand you and agree that this functionality would greatly enhance the Blog app. Let’s hope this idea gets more traction with other users and the devs will be able to consider it in the future 
We also have a request with a greater number of votes for the built-in comments section, which should cover your idea too. Please upvote it to get notified about any changes - Ability for visitors to leave a comment