>Weekend Reads
>Hey look! I’m in Cookie Magazine! The topic is one that sort of infuriates me, since that scenario in which one of our children is mocked by their friends over something we wrote about him or her ten years ago is just so incredibly unlikely, but still! Cookie Magazine!
>That Botanical Gardens story? That is my life with my SIL who lets her kids to anything and everything they want. I stopped worryin about whether she thinks I’m judging her or being overprotective. My kid. My rules. But in your case, I might have pinched my baby or something to make him cry, so we’d have an excuse to leave the general vicinity… or maybe just faked a poopy diaper.
>As far as correcting my children for doing something someone else is doing, I just do it. If I offend someone, too bad, especially if they are strangers! As for mommy blogs hurting a child, that totally pisses me off. (And I’m not a blogger.) I was horrified to see that there are actual blogs out there (in particular the adolescent-minded, hate-filled C.L.) that center around bashing moms who blog because they are “exploiting” their kids. Give me a break!
>As far as ruining our kid’s future social lives… I do think that some blogs offer a tad, where tad equals grimace inducing mental pictures that I am now forever stuck with, TMI (cough,Dooce), but I don’t think yours is one of them- you seem to be pretty good about sharing, but not in a way that that is disrespectful to your kids or hubs- or believe you me- your step daughters would have told you by now!
>You are one smart cookie to be in Cookie.
>Hmm, my son was most definitely mocked as a result of my blog from 11 years ago. I wrote about him as a baby and how I felt. I used a nickname for him but later I took the text (bearing in mind there was no “blogging software” then – this was all done by hand) and added it as a link to my home page.At school, the game was to google each others names and see what came up. My son’s name came up with a match on my homepage, which in turn had the link to those old posts.They teased him like crazy, he was in tears, a teacher got involved. The school phoned me, confused as to what the boys had found (future schools will be used to it, I’m sure) and trying to work out what to do. The school actually blocked my domain with their nanny software, believe it or not, as a way of dealing with it. I was a bit freaked out but I don’t really know what the answer was either.Anyway, he got over it. I still write about him but I also talk to him about it a lot. I think there are serious privacy issues and that people do need to think about the impact of what they are writing and how that can be used. On the other hand, I don’t think it’s valid to say “thus you should not blog” either.
>First, happy weekend!I’m glad I don’t face the issue of having to explain death to a four year old. But my reading here tells me you’ve got the right balance to do it as well as anyone.’Nuff said on that.Once in a great while, something I’ve written in my late website, or my extant blog, gets read by a person it was written about (or by someone who assumes it was about them), and I hear about it.Eh…that’s life. If I had kids that I wrote about, and something cute/embarrassing now, made for them being kidded about it in 10 years…well, maybe that’d give me pause. Then again, an incident in my youth continues to come back every Thanksgiving to ‘taunt’ me at family gatherings. I just eat my turkey and grin 😉
>Congrats on your recent publications! I wanted to “drop by” to let your writing-inclined readers know about a writing contest:At the thenovelette.com, you can enter theme-based contests so you can get recognition (and win prizes!) for your own writing. Winners are chosen by website readers and professional writers.You can win a $25 gift certificate in two categories if you submit a 500-750 word piece of fiction or nonfiction at thenovelette.com. The current contest ends on August 30.
>Sylvia — I wrote the Cookie piece, and I wish I had met you before it was published! Would have loved to interview you.Anyway, I think ST provided a valuable voice of calm and experience in the piece. I know hearing about her experience calmed my own concerns (altho Sylvia’s experience reignites them a bit).
>Sylvia — I wrote the Cookie piece, and I wish I had met you before it was published! Would have loved to interview you.Anyway, I think ST provided a valuable voice of calm and experience in the piece. I know hearing about her experience calmed my own concerns (altho Sylvia’s experience reignites them a bit).
>I think calm is important. :)I think I’m going to write a bigger piece about this – I don’t mean to say so-don’t-blog-about-your-children but I don’t think you can dismiss the issue as “not going to happen” either.I didn’t know the technology that was to come (Google) – nor do we now. So a head in the sand attitude isn’t really the answer.On the other hand, mothers have been embarrassing their children through the ages. Kids have shown up in all sorts of public places: in the news, in films and in books. Most of them have survived without serious trauma.
>I have to say that I don’t use my kids’ names just for the reason that you mentioned, Sylvia. Kids do like to Google, that’s for sure.I think there will be missteps for most mom bloggers- incidents that irritate their children- but the vast majority of them will be proud and happy one day that their moms documented their lives so closely, realistically, and lovingly. I wish my own mother had had a blog.