The Perils of Parent Blogging
Child's Play x2 | March 13I have always disdained parents who live vicariously through their children. Stage Moms and Sports Dads have inundated the parenting landscape and are often portrayed as driving, self-centered parents who want their child to fulfull all that they never had. The damage done to these children can be, and often is, quite extensive.
In a way, one could make the case that as bloggers we have the potential to cause our children harm. Blogging is something I enjoy because it allows me to write (something I have come to love) about something that is absolutely the best thing that ever happened to me. I started my blog as a way to keep family and friends abreast of the goings-on at the Childsplayx2 household. I never imagined that so many people who I don’t know and will likely never meet would find that interesting. But now that opens up a small can of worms. As my children get older, they might not appreciate me writing about them in such a public forum. “Friends” could easily find information about when they were finally potty-trained or what their first words were. This, I can see, could be embarrassing for them and I don’t want to cause any embarrassment for my children.
Having said that, it’s hard for me to imagine giving up something that I love so much. My guess, is when the time comes that the blog makes them uncomfortable, I’ll have to move it underground. I have tried to make the blog as anonymous as possible but I have never been able to give them a nickname that would protect their anonymity. JT and Bri has always been the way I address them and I find it hard to call them anything else. But, I might just have to make the change mid-stream if I ever want to keep blogging past their early years.
It’s a difficult balance. I often wonder how Dooce will handle the minor celebrity status that Leta will have as she gets older. Especially now that Dooce.com obviously allows them to make a living at what they do. It’s certainly a difficult balancing act. I only hope that I’m able to balance it accordingly.
How about you? What are your thoughts on the perils of blogging about your children?
You know I’ve started to think about that, as my kids are older than yours. And I have no answers. Mine don’t care right now, and they do know. Maya thinks it is cool, and wants more pictures of her up there. But that makes me a little nervous. Not now when I get so few hits, but for the future. I don’t know, I guess you just take it one stage at a time.
I have thought about that as well…but the way I look at it…is that the stories I tell will be a great source of history for my kiddos when they get older. I print out all my entries on a monthly basis and keep a binder of them. That way…if technology changes or I stop blogging etc…I have the memories right there. Plus…I try to balance between bloggin about them and bloggin about my life. That way…we can allll look back and laugh! :)
I am new to this blogging thing, we have an ebusiness and if they want to find me they can, I am wondering if anybody is really out there looking to hurt people? I know there are predators out there but they usually talk the kid into meeting them someplace. They aren’t going to talk me into meeting them.
The kids will be fine, and proud of the fact that their parents kept a record. I wish I go back and read up on what was happening in my parents life when I was young. It is a wonderful bridge between generations, this blogging thing.
I am lucky that my oldest is 4 and my youngest six months. They don’t even know what blogging is yet.
I have tried to preserve our anonymity as best I can, but you’re right if someone who knows us comes across the blog they will recognise us immediately.
I hope the kids understand as they get older. I hope their friends don’t tease them too much. But ultimately I’m not sure that it will do them any long term damage. They gotta get teased about something right?
My husband actually gave this a lot more thought than I did when I got started. And in an effort to keep our family life separate from the blogosphere, he went out and got me my own domain name once I really took off. I have mentioned my kids’ names before, but I picked the nicknames in order to kind of keep their anonymity - though I can forsee changing the nicknames at some point in time - I don’t think that the Munchkin and Baby Boy will stick forever.
I guess because this blogging thing is so new, we have yet to see how it will all play out with exposing so much of our lives online. And who knows how long any of us will want to keep this up? In the meantime, if blogging about their funny quirks and sayings is the worst thing we do to our kids, I think we’re still pretty good parents.
I only post what my kids tell me I can post. They’re nine and nearly-six, so they definitely have a say in what the world knows about them. I’ve not posted some seriously funny or tragic things because they didn’t want me to.
I only use their first names and I actually post with my maiden name. My married name is far, far too uncommon for me to be comfortable with using.
I just won’t let my kids use the Internet. Ever.
(kidding!)
We use nicknames in everyday parlance to the point of irritating our 3 yr old, so that’s not a stretch. Haven’t really thought much about his future embarasment. This could be handy.
Interesting parallel with the stage parents though. I can see how one’s sense of one’s self could just slide away as they become spell-bound by the life of their child; They are fascinating and amazing. I think it’s a matter of self-awareness, and reflection on right action.
I have been thinking about this a fair bit lately, from the impact on the kids to the privacy of my family. I am definitely in agreement with dooce that “the internet won’t be big enough for the both of us.” My daughter is already strong willed and will likely be blogging about me as soon as she can write so I know my payback is coming. It is still too early to tell about my son, but I am guessing he will hack in and alter history.
Back up your posts. Keep them as a journal. The thoughts that you type out every few days will be priceless to the kids when they are older and have children of their own.
I’ve got no problem with blogging about my kids or family. I think my children will appreciate this at a later age and hopefully enjoy it. I think it’s important to be honest and at some point explain what you talked about with your kids. Even if they don’t ask. I’m usre I have written embarrassing things but as long as it’s honest I can explain it with no problems and still feel good about it.
I try not to give out too much info, like home address etc, but a personal blog without personal details doesn’t really make sense to me.
AD
This has been a real issue for me. I’m still not entirely happy with what I came up with to resolve it, but FWIW, here goes:
I do not use our real names, but then I started my blog with tweenage (read: “MOOOOOOOOM!!! You’re EMBARRASSING ME!!!!”) children. Since no one in my family ever came up to me and said, “Please write about all the things I do that make you laugh, on the Internet,” I decided it was only fair to give them a feeble disguise.
I also don’t write about anything that I believe would truly betray anyone’s confidences, if published. I keep the blog light, or else too general to finger the guilty. (Besides, I’m saving the juicy stuff for my searing, yet factually verifiable, memoir.)
Second, I post no photos of family members or of anything that could identify precisely where we live. Yes, I realize on some level that this is paranoid, but my neighbor’s two-year-old was nearly kidnapped by a stranger who stalked them for about a year, because he liked the little guy’s looks. (My neighbor realized an intruder was in the house, and called 911, thus proving that it’s good to keep your cell phone in your bedroom at night. The police dog sniffed out a two-hundred-pound child molester hiding in the dryer. And yes, he is in prison now.) ‘
That said, someone determined could figure out our real identities. I just aim to discourage casual opportunists.
I have wondered about Leta’s take, in ten or twenty years, on dooce.com as well.
I try to protect our anonymity by not posting specifics about where we live, no real names, and no photos. I did post a couple of photos in the beginning, but won’t post anything now that would give away anyone’s identity.
I am very transparent at my site; my full name appears on the site, as well as my city and my husband and sons’ actual first names (they have a different last name). I have never named their schools, but local readers are able to deduce which schools they go to.
I have also written extensively about my older son’s learning disability, not to embarass him but to find ways to be a better parent to this child who is not like his peers. I started the blog just weeks before he began the long diagnostic process; it was incredibly difficult for me, primarily because I didn’t know any other parents who were going through what we were. But through the blog, I have met some incredible people and found a support network I never could have found in my city. I have learned a lot from these people, and I think that in turn has enabled me to help my son in ways I could not have without the blog.
For me, it comes down to this: my site, as much as my children provide subject matter, is really about me, not them. And I will tell them that, should they ever ask.
I’ve always kept a few rules for myself… I never use my kids’ names. I rarely publish close-up photos of them. I’m careful about identifying where they go to school, or play, or favorite family hang-outs. I never write about places we are going to in the future… I write about them after we’ve been there. You just can’t be too careful, but I don’t want to cross over into the land of paranoia, so it’s a constant balance. I’ll have to re-visit everything when the kids are older.
Everything I write, even about seemingly goofy, trivial stuff, is with Bella in mind, and the idea that one day she will have this silly blog as a record of who her mother was and what was on my mind at any given points in her life. So gosh, no, I’d never write anything that I think could potentially embarrass or otherwise harm her. I hope I leave things that will help her along her own way, and maybe even live on in usefulness beyond that. Most of all, I want her to know that the overriding force in my life, the honest-to-goodness sunshine in my soul, is HER, and my intense, burning, fierce love for her.
I want her to understand what a miracle she was, and how many times I was told she would never be. I write, in a somewhat oblique way, about the many adversities her parents have faced, because I want her to know that if her life isn’t always sunshine and lollipops, that that is a perfectly normal state of affairs and can be dealt with, and at the same time I don’t want her mired down in the “heaviness” of what life can have in store. And I guess, like any parent, the ultimate hope is that in experiencing my struggles, hers may be eased, or better navigated.
And I use her first name for the same reason I use ours: Simply put, I could never, ever, in a million years remember to use a “pen name” EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Never. I just ain’t that good.
Of course, I will encourage her to read the archives as soon as she’d like, and would gladly strike anything, or stop altogether, if it bothered her. I don’t see that happening, but I would respect her wishes in anything that involves her personally. Mine’s a pretty tame site compared to some others. I write it not only with my daughter in mind, but my community, my church, my co-workers, and my extended family and real-life friends, all of whom are well aware of, and read, the blog regularly. Like I say, it’s pretty tame. But I’d give anything, now that my own dad is unexpectedly gone, if I had something like this of him, even if it was nothing but his awful Confuscious lines (i.e. “Man who fly upside-down have crack up.”), a few of his stories, and some of his beautiful prayers.
I think about this often. My husband thoroughly enjoys my writing and thinks it will be a great record for B & B to read someday, BUT is highly paranoid about someone with bad intentions figuring out who we are and where we live. It wouldn’t be hard. I’m not so worried about embarrassing them right now. I think I’ve still got a few years before that is an issue.
Well, my wife makes me keep the stories anonymous (and has full editorial privileges…).
Since our baby is still too young to know better, what concerns me more is whether my indulging in this whole blogging hobby takes away too much precious time that I could be spending with her and my wife instead. I have to say that balancing the little free time I have is certainly one of the hardest things I’ve had to figure out now that I’m a parent.