When you venture into the on-line world of personal blogging you have to make some decisions. Namely, about how much you share in general but how much you share about your children in particular.
My children aren’t babies so the possibility of them reading whatever I conjure up here on Shambolic Living is very real. Initially, they did read a little bit, but they quickly lost interest. Apparently my writing skills can’t compete with Jacqueline Harvey, Amanda Hocking or Suzanne Collins.
It’s very difficult to eliminate your children from a personal blog. Children, no matter what their age, are all-consuming and tend to invade your thoughts, activities, and every waking (and many sleeping) moments of the day/night. That tends to spill over into your writing.
So when you venture into the online world you come up with your own set of rules. In my case, no real names but do post pictures, then take each post on a case-by-case basis on how much I share.
I got to thinking again about how much is OK to share when I read a post by Grown and Flown Is it Right to Write About My Kids?
By writing about our children we are creating a public persona for them. We are, in the current parlance, creating their brand. By writing about them, we are telling the world who our children are, thereby usurping one of life’s most important experiences.
In the blogging world there is a lot of talk about “creating a brand”, applying that to what we write about our children is a little bit scary.
Just the simple act of choosing a pseudonym can come with “branding”. What if the Hippie Child grows up to be a capitalist real estate developer? Will she be horrified for people to discover her artistic, zoned-out dreamer adolescence. Then the Princess Child, what happens if she ends up living in the hills building a mud-brick house with a commune of pot-smoking drop-outs? Does that mean deleting any mention of the make-up loving, fashionista of her childhood?
Ultimately, whatever I write about my children comes from my perspective, with my own interpretation of what they do and say. There’s a chance I could get it wrong (hard to believe but possible).
It’s wrong to pigeon-hole your children, but we do it everyday (come on be honest, we do, it can’t just be me). We do it wandering through the shopping centres when we comment “that top would really suit Princess Child”. Or when we crack a joke about Hippie Child’s clumsiness. By taking that onto a blog are we creating an identity for our offspring that will hinder their adult life?
Imagine if our own “branding” was stuck as the teenager we were in 1987 – and worse what if it was created by our MOTHER!
Oh the modern-day conundrums we create when we venture virtual.
Conundrums indeed! You raise a good question.
(I just saw that your post is dated Jan. 10. It’s still Jan. 9 here–how cool is that?) : )
I wish I had the answer to it! And yes we lead the world here in Australia – anything you want to know about the future?
And that is the crux of it – I write about my children from my perspective and my experience. Which is why I said no when my ex demanded I remove all reference to my oldest girl from my blog, those posts are about the things I would tell her if she were here, even when my emotions cloud my words.
It’s a difficult area blogging and children – in my case, mine will probably get their revenge by starting their own blogs at some point!
I try to keep what I say about my kids positive. So far they like the photos, and the bits Hannah has read she likes. We have rules to help keep them a little more anonymous. I never publish where we live or our last name (though I guess it wouldn’t be too hard to work it out if you were keen). My husband didn’t want his name published so I have a pseudonym for him. My sister requested that I didn’t publish photos of her or her children so I don’t. Having said all that, it is my blog, and my perspective always!
My children have, on the whole, been supportive. There have been some blog ideas veteoed, but others they enjoyed. I have also been surprised at how much of a record of our life it has become. They both now expect that the “big” events will be documented on the blog. They cried over the posts on the dogs dying, they look for the posts on graduation etc. But it still remains a giant balancing act.
I think you strike a great balance Janine. The other thing is, it is an amazing record of their youth. Our parents may have had photo albums, but they didn’t leave us the words and insights we are leaving our children. I would love to have that from my parents, and I would have loved to see how connected they were with other bloggers. Let’s hope our own children feel the same way. 🙂
That has been the surprising thing for me just how much of a family record it is becoming.
I use real names and photographs of my children plus they get plenty of mentions but I never write about them directly, their actions, words or thoughts. It would feel disloyal to me plus it’s not something I particularly enjoy in other blogs.
The closest I came was writing about my memories as an expectant single mother living in 90’s Dublin but that was still about me and my feelings at the time rather than about my daughter! Even still I wouldn’t have published it without her approval as it was very personal to us both.
Very thought provoking Janine, perhaps people don’t give it as much thought as they should.
It is something we all need to consider, what our boundaries are when it comes to blogging about our kids. I’m guessing if I had started blogging when my kids were little my boundaries might have been different. But knowing they could log in at any time makes you carefully consider what you post.
I write a wildlife blog.I know they love animals, I know they enjoy the broad wildlife and nature activities we do but I don’t want to influence their natural interests and sway them. It’s such a fine line isn’t it.
It is indeed.
I don’t mention my boys’ names on my blog at all. They won’t ever be able to be ‘googled’ later to find out all the juicy details of 2 year old tantrums, or struggling with spelling (amongst many other things!).
I do love that they will be able to read all about our trips and adventures, and their parties and achievements later on.
It is an amazing record for them in the future.
My kids are 18 and 16 – on my blog, they are Mr 18 & Miss 16 to help protect their privacy. I could write a zillion amazing entertaining and heartfelt blog posts about the joys and challenges of parenting teenagers but I choose not to – again, to protect their privacy. But there ARE some days I just long to let it all out LOL …
Imagine the stories we could tell if we didn’t have to protect their privacy and egos! LOL.
I was a bit worried at the start of my blog in revealing too much, I refer to mine as No.1, 2 or 3. But still it someone wanted to find out names they probably could even if I didn’t put on my blog, it’s that sort of world I’m afraid.
Emily
My daughter’s friend discovered my blog when she googled “hippies” for a project, up popped “Hippie Child”! You can’t win.
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A very interesting post, Janine!
I use the nicknames we have for my boys on my blog. As they’re still only toddlers, at the moment, I’m writing mainly about the incidences we have and my (and my husband’s) reactions to them. But, I know as they get older, it’ll be different and I’ll have to be a lot more conscious about it. I know when I get to that stage, I’ll be thinking of this post. So, thank you!
It will be interesting to see your boys reactions to being blogged about, for them it will be something they have grown up with so they mightn’t be fazed by it at all.
I have a 15 year old who is happy enough for me to write about him and share images online and I take great care in choosing what to post BUT my 13 year old is fantatical about me NOT sharing much information about him and he is very wary of the online world – even friends on my personal Facebook page could be forgiven for thinking that I have 2 children and not 3 – he rarely gives permission for a photo to be posted – even if he’s in the background.
The issue of digital footprints is really worth thinking about seriously isn’t it? x
Wow, I’d never thought about “branding” children coming back to bite you like that… thank goodness I had enough of an embarassing mother that I’m really sensitive about which stories I share and which I wisely keep amongst the family when it comes to my boys! Thanks for the food for thought today!
It’s a tricky one. I’ve had a few different blogs in my blogging lifetime and each time I talk less and less about my kids. Now if I do blog about them it is in very general terms.
Fantastic, relevant post. I often wonder if I’m sharing too much … But then as you pointed out … my kids are such a massive part of my life that it really would be impossible to write a personal blog without them in it. Definitely food for thought though … Thank you
Thanks for commenting, I read your post in the rewind, the thing I love about blogging is the fact that ordinary people get to tell their stories, we are creating a wonderful social history for future generations to study! I can’t comment on your actual post because it doesn’t have a url/name option – for some reason I can’t use any of the other options on blogger blogs.
I thought about this a lot when we started our travel blog. Whether to use real names or not, then I decided to trust that there are good people out there who will genuinely be interested in following our journey. I hadn’t thought so much about the brand I would be creating for my little one, ha ha – I’m sure pay back will come at some stage! But I love the comments above about documenting more comprehensively our family development, which is the perspective I’m taking 🙂
I think this is one of the biggest conundrums as a blogger. Thanks for Rewinding.
I can really relate to this post, and it’s almost like you are writing my thoughts! I started my blog almost 12 months ago and I have been conflicted over how much information to share about my children. And I feel the same way about being reluctant to “pigeon hole” them. Great post, and I really like your writing style.
Thanks for stopping by Michaela.
You raise some really valid points Janine and it is definitely something I have become more aware of as my oldest son started highschool. These days anything I write about them needs to be cleared by them first.. including photos. Yep they insist on approving the photos first 😉 xx
Yes I’ve sneakily posted a couple of shots they probably wouldn’t approve but they haven’t done a random check on me for a while so I’ve managed to get away with it for now.