So something happened with my daughter this week that absolutely infuriated me. (It wasn’t anything bad that my daughter did–she’s great, and I’m an incredibly lucky mom with both of my kids. It was something with the public school system here that made me glad as hell all over again that I send her to a private school where she can be challenged at the level her brainy self needs.)
But although most of my friends have been forced to listen to my kvetching about this, it’s not something I can blog about, because Blaine might one day see it as violating her privacy.
And that got me to thinking about kids and blogging, and what our progeny might one day take offense at. I’ve always used my kids’ names, though I know that not everyone does. (I’ve read lots of Jay Lake’s posts about “the child†and still don’t know her name.) I don’t think Blaine will ever mind that I posted the Batgirl picture she drew (because really, that was such a rockin’ drawing for a seven-year-old), but I can’t know that as an angsty teen she won’t take offense at some baby story I blogged that I thought was cute.
Because we can’t assume that these blogs aren’t permanent–that they won’t be on the Net now in some form forever, regardless of whether we delete them. There’s the Internet Archive, for instance, that tries to save for history copies of every web page. (They haven’t come close, but they do have 55 billion saved.) If someone deletes a post (or friends-locks it after the initial posting on LJ), you can usually still see that post via a feed. And who knows what else might come along?
So I have to stop and think that someday some employer or suitor or stalker is going to type in my kiddos’ names and potentially come up with all the posts I made about the kids as they grew up. That’s a little scary.
I’m curious about people’s opinions on this, about the parameters of the decisions other parents and have made and why. If you have a moment to share, I’d love to hear.
Well, one reason I blog The Child as “The Child” is to protect her. And I only blog interesting, funny or poignant stuff, not the hard-nut fights and rough days. I figure my experiences as a parent are fair game. And later she’ll have a terrific record to look back on.
I use aliases for my children. I blog about a lot of the things they say and do, but not always. They’re 4 and 1, but I feel they still deserve their privacy on some things. I suspect that as they age, this may change. It’s possible that if they’re having Huge Major Angst (TM) I may touch on it, but won’t completely blog it. Of course, I also have boys, and I suspect this may play a role. Of course, one has to account for individual variation and all that.
Have you considered asking Neil Gaiman about this? He rarely mentions his wife, but blogs about his children regularly. Of course, he writes about fairly mundane things in terms of his kids — what they’re reading, watching, etc. While few people who read my blog will know who I am and my children are, he and his family are just pretty darn visual.
I think you are wise.
I was just talking about this a couple weeks ago – I decided to friendslock a post discussing toilet training stuff because I thought, how’s it going to feel for my son to have all these stories and info about him out there for anyone to find, someday when he’s older? Wouldn’t that embarrass him (potentially)?
Someone posted this back at me in a comment:
http://www.nataliedee.com/080906/haha-dork-i-bet-your-dogs-name-is-ipod.jpg
Hah. It’s funny because it’s probably going to be true.
Jay: I try not to touch on the rough times, too. Being a parent’s a difficult job, but if I blogged all the hard stuff and my kids looked back on my blog as childless adults, they’d probably think I hated them (which would be ridiculously untrue). :-)
Maggie: I completely understad using aliases. Because I blog under my own name, I just never gave much thought to using aliases for my kids. I don’t know Neil Gaiman at all to ask him something like that. I know he often answers questions on his blog, but it always looks to me as though he’s incredibly inundated already. :-)
Cath: Thanks. :-) If I were that wise, though, I’d have given this more serious consideration before now.
Melinika: That’s a very valid worry. And that cartoon is hilarious!
I friendslock some of the kidness that I talk about. Other than that… She has her own LJ account. (Friendslocked from day one.) She’ll probably decide that it’s embarrassing… but FAME! She likes attention.
I also tell the spiders not to archive my Livejournal. (Not that it’ll stop all of them, of course.)
One of my best friends starting capturing his thoughts in a blog (even before there were blogs — he had an email list), with the primary intention of leaving something for his son. He has a very strong sens of family and history.
So, I think that not only should we be thinking about such things in a negative sense of “what should I avoid saying for my child’s future sake,” but in a positive sense of “what would I like my child to see when I am gone?”
Beth: Yes, I know a lot of people f’lock kid stuff.
Mentalwasteland: That’s a wonderful point. Jay’s comment was along those lines, too.
I use my own name,
but the husband is the D.H., and the kid is The Kid.
I don’t say that much about them. I post no pictures.
In the real world, it wouldn’t take all that much work to connect us, but I doubt anyone would ever bother.
There’s much safety in obscurity.
I’ve discussed this numerous times with my kids. A couple of them want to be left out of the journaling now. A couple of them enjoy (or want) me to talk about them and their friends. I’ve been doing the journal thing for over five years, so the youngest was eleven when I began.
Lately, I’ve mostly friend-locked my family entries where my name is public. Because I’m not sure who is reading it and whether I want family information public.
I discovered in the past couple of years that the kids take bragging rights by what happens when they ‘google’ my name at school. So, I’m thinking that that gives them a certain sense of pride; mom isn’t just a mom, or just a factory worker, but has a certain amount of success in other areas.
I worry about protecting my own career as a lawyer, should I say something inappropriate. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about protecting my children yet!
Then there’s the issue of posting pictures.
Concern is important, but so is expression. If you censor yourself too much, nothing gets said. The safest thing to say about work, yourself, your children, would be nothing, but then why have an online journal?
Finding the balance is a tricky issue.
Mack
Jo: I’d always posted lots of pictures of my kids, but one of my friends noted that perhaps I should lock them, and I did. Most of my kid pics, then, don’t show up on this blog (I didn’t bring over anything that was f’locked), though they’re on my LJ. Since then I’ve been posting pictures again, though. It’s a tough decision because I really like posting pics of my kids; I have friends and family who come here just to see them.
Pam: I’ve thought about asking Blaine’s permission, but I feel she’s really too young to give it. She’s a ham, too, and would gladly have me post any bragging about her I can, I think. :-) It’s worth discussing with her anyway, though.
Mack: That’s exactly right. I think I’ve been doing an okay job of that so far, but I’m going to try to pay even better attention. I’ll probably continue to post pictures of my kids, but I’m going to think really hard about anything personal I post about them.
I’ve been using pseudonyms for my family as well (The Wife for, um, my wife, and Thing 1 and Thing 2 for the boys). I didn’t really want to use their names without their permission, and the boys are too young (8 and 5) to really give permission. (My wife doesn’t freally understand or care what a blog is, so I left her vague on general principles.)
I’ve also avoided putting up pictures of the boys, for vague paranoid reasons.
But I have talked about them on my personal blog — mostly little funny things, but probably stuff that would eventually embarass them. Because, of course, anything parents do can be deeply embarassing to a child, and so that’s hard to avoid.
It’s a fuzzy line, and we’re all trying to figure out our places on it. (I don’t think anyone has yet mentioned John Scalzi, who not only names his daughter on his blog, but uses her as a sidekick in videos and other posts — he’s clearly comfortable with that, and it’s quite funny.)
This whole issue is exactly why I’ve switched my personal blog from Blogger to Vox (http://www.vox.com), which has very slick privacy settings just like Flickr. Now I only blog about the kids to family. Meanwhile on my SF blog I try to remain as “anonymous” as possible.