This may seem practically luddite but something I won’t be doing here – well, not deliberately often at any rate – is posting a lot involving my children’s names , schools, pictures and so on. I don’t even do a lot of it on Facebook.
The main reason is that I think online should be their place to go onto and discover as and when they want and it’s not up to me to put them online: they should have the ability to decide how much (and if) they want to be online. In the meantime I still get to blog about them and the people who know them – grandparents and so on who can’t do Facebook – can still check in here from time to time.
(it reminds me of a chat I had with Warren Ellis around the time Matt Fraction had his kid and we differed on revealing so much online. Warren felt that the sheer quantity of stuff put out by parents and others would swamp anything that prospective employers and so on might find, while I felt data mining would get better and besides, it was the kid’s choice as to how much was online anyway.)
All of which does beg one question: when this generation grows up, how are they going to take parents having posted chunks of details about their lives online? Even worse, there will be intimate details of their parents online…
3 responses to “Revealing your children online”
Good blog post, Craig. This is an issue I often worry about too(and have blogged about myself): the privacy line and where you draw it when you blog about themes that were inspired by your everyday/family life. It is sensitive enough writing things about your partner or your extended family but when kids are involved, then you’re right, what about THEIR right to privacy?
But, having said that, 21st century children are born surfing the Net and facebooking. By the time they are adults, privacy may have an entire different connotation, and online exposure may not seem as intimidating as it is for some of us now… Who is to say? Good food for thought.
Thanks for the reply – and anyone else interested in this area should look at what Chie has posted at this link and I know it’s an area where I’m told I fuss too much, but I value my privacy (I go nuts if a letter addressed to me is opened) and I would rather err on the side of not caution but respect. It’s someone who is a part of my life – and as such I will share it – but there will be elements I choose not to share.
Don’t think I could make my children more high profile online that they are already 😉 but my grandchildren? I suppose I don’t blog much about them except as fascinating subjects for a teacher to observe – so not really very personal – but photos are a different matter! I certainly don’t overstep any boundaries set by their parents.
But a question: is privacy really compatible with anything other than a minimal online presence? If we want to be truly private, seems to me we’d not touch blogging with a bargepole!