You know, crazy doesn't have its own zip code. Yeah when you put stuff out into the ether it widens your audience in a way, but really, sickos strike where they are. I mean that you're more likely to have a concern about the sickos in your area than across the country/globe. And those sickos are there whether you blog or not. So I guess I don't feel like its THAT big a deal.

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I wrote about this recently in my personal blog, and thought about Kristen's experience not long before she shut down her Tall&Lucky blog (the jogging experience - am I remembering this right?) I've considered doing as another friend of mine did recently, and shutting down her family blog, but resurfacing elsewhere with pseudonyms and all traceable details omitted, but when it comes down to it, I I still feel safe using my children's first names, posting pictures of them, sharing our little reality show via blog. Perhaps if I had a high readership I would feel less secure, but for now, my tiny corner of the internet does not feel threatening.

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I use my child's initials on my blog - I've been blogging for a good 7 years now - and knew I was going to be putting her pictures and stories there and on my flickr page. Like ivory above - my tiny corner with a small regular readership does not feel threatening -- but a friend blogger of mine had her baby's picture's stolen from her site and some crazy used them as her own- so it is something to be careful with for sure. I'm all for pseudonyms or initial using as well as only posting pictures directly linked to your copyrighted flickr page or removing hotlinks from the code, etc... it's just another means of moderation in everything - it's ok to put yourself out there but don't leave it wide open..

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I use all psuedonyms and post no photos of the critters. And try to give no damning details.

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I use only their first initials, and am vague about where we live. My blog is also readable by invite only. Only about 10 choosen family/friends can access it. Can't get much more *careful* than that!

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I have a personal blog. It is small. I don't have a lot of people who read it. It is cheaper than therapy and works as well in my opinion.

The problem with more public sites such as this one, or really any site where there is a lot of visibility - is that there are people who are quite vocal when they disagree with you. I love the support, but find the criticism difficult to manage. And there are SO MANY arguments in the blogsphere - almost like being in high school again at times.

So - that all said, I do use names and have pictures on my site, but that is because my readership is small. I like it that way. I know almost everyone that reads there personally - so I don't worry about being too careful with names / pictures. Now, I don't have my address or phone number out there, but it wouldn't be hard to find me I guess.

Now I am paranoid.

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I have had a blog for almost five years, seeing my son from 9-13. He knows about it and even tells his friends about it at times. BUT - as he gets older - I just know what's off limits. A lot of my readers want to know more about our relationship and the hurdles I only slightly mention, but to me? That's too much. He's been supportive of my blog, so I just try to remember what it was like to be his age and make judgements based on that.

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I have a public blog about my daughter. (actually, it's in my profile on PD and I have made some friends through that link) Our friends and families are too spread out to make regular calls and mass emails annoy me.

I don't hide her name. We also have pictures up. I list our state, but not our city. We don't do anything where we live, all the fun stuff is more than 15 miles from our house, so I don't worry about our location being figured out.

Honestly - I prefer some perv to look at pictures than go out and grab a kid. (I would prefer neither, but that does not seem to be an option now)

I find my blog has been a way to meet people from all over the world. I like that I can be personal in such an arena, really. I would also get too confused trying to keep it separated. I have a friend that "slipped" and thought it was the worst thing ever. Nope, there's an edit button on blogs!

I guess that I'm very "do whatever you're comfortable with" when it comes to an issue like this.

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Here's another thing to consider: Who really =owns= the public retelling of the experiences/behaviors of children?? Is that solely the right of the parents? Or should children be permitted to live an anonymous childhood and retell their lives in their own blog/memoir when they choose to do so and when they are of age to make such a decision? I think parents who blog about their kids mean well, but they are in a way taking away a child's power to forge their own identity online. And yes this matters with Google searches able to reach back to the internet archives of the 1990s. Children blogged about today may in 10 years have to at minumum explain their parents' historic take on them when they start becoming self-published individuals online themselves.

--CraigG

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I post pictures, real names - first and last - for my family. Or rather, at least my immediate family. I don`t know how friends or extended family would feel, so obviously I avoid posting pictures and info pertaining to them. I have no problem with people knowing our names and where we live (Although I`ve certainly never posted our address or phone number, if someone took a few minutes it would be very easy to find.)

I`m not particularly worried that someone is going to come and hunt us down - particularly as we don`t live in the states. If someone strange does come knocking? I`ll call the police. I don`t leave my son unattended, and our house is pretty secure. What exactly should I be terrified of? Any worse case scenario seems just as likely to happen with or without that info on the web.

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I find CraigG's comment interesting because I have almost the complete opposite take on blogging about my kids. One of the chief reasons I started keeping a journal almost 5 years ago was that I felt that if I ever had kids they'd have a record of my life and their early years. This is particularly important to me if anything were to ever happen to me. I would love to have such a thing from my own mother, who is terrible at remembering anything from when I was young or before I was born.

As for the online vs. privacy aspects, I don't think I'd be able to keep up with journalling without getting some feedback and feeling like I was part of a bigger community, so being online provides me with the motivation to keep writing. But I do use pseudonyms for my kids and I don't put our last name anywhere (not that my last name is the same anyway). Someone could probably find me if they really tried hard enough because I've left a few clues, but it wouldn't be very easy. Nor do I post a lot of pictures and when I do I try to make sure they aren't the sort that would appeal to creepy people. And my kids' future friends and employers won't find my journal by googling my kids' names so I feel okay about the whole thing in that regard. Besides, I'm pretty sure that their toddler-era sleeping habits won't be that interesting to their friends down the line.

http://talpidae.diaryland.com

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I think the way in which you blog and the reasons you list for doing so are very valuable (the feeling part of a community and not alone etc). I've been thinking of starting my own for similar reasons.

I have read several blogs, one of which is perhaps one of the best known out there. Within that one, there are descriptions of the pain the parents felt when they had to give their child an enema. Personally - and I don't for a second think my point of view is THE TRUTH or the only truth out there - I found that to be very invasive of said child's privacy. Namely, because the blog is so well read internationally, because the child is named and well, because how will that child feel years from now to know such intimate details of their life have been shared with literally millions? While I can only begin to imagine the parents' pain and need to write of all the latter for support, I also can only begin to imagine how mortified that child might one day be. So, for me personally, I would probably do a Swistle and go with the pseudonyms for the privacy of all.

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RobMonroe---after getting over the initial shock of your statement about preferring pervs look at pics, and realizing your seemingly good intentions with that statement, I am still ashast at your reasoning.

"Pervs" as you say, or pedophiles, don't stop with just looking. It is a disease that is incurable and unstoppable. Allowing them to look at pictures--OF YOU OWN FREAKING CHILDREN--will not stop them. You ought to be ashamed of the fact that you're ok with pedophiles looking, sexually, at your children. I am truly disgusted.

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I have heard people give the argument that if a pervert is getting off at pictures of your kid, your kids is being victimized, and I have a hard time with that. I once had someone tell me that someone had told him that every night before he went to bed, my face was the one he thought of. I can read a little more deeply there and imagine what that meant. Was I being "victimized" in any way? I never felt like it. And it's just as possible that some freak could see my kid in the grocery store and remember his face (or secretly snap a pic with a camera phone) and the same thing would happen as if I put his pics up on my blog.

I will say I did consider taking mine down - or making it password protected - recently. A few weeks in a row, at our park right before a class my son takes, there was this guy. The first time, no big deal, he just chit-chatted like any parents do while their kids play at the park. He asked my name, which seemed a little weird, but no big deal. The next time he was there without his kids, and he was practically following me around the park and being somewhat aggressive. I realized that he had my first name, and heard my sons' names from me talking to them at the park. I did a search, and with just our three first names there was my blog. One of my links takes you to my last name if you look hard enough. But I realized that even with all that, you can't find my address or phone number, and that the much bigger threat would be if he followed my home (which i was carefully watching for).

So I decided to keep it up.

I'm sure there are cases where scary things happen to people becasue of what they do online, but I think the real world dangers are much worse. And as an example of how this is not entirely new, every time you have pictures of your child developed at a photo center, the people see your kid, have your address and phone number. That seems like a much bigger danger to me, and how often have you ever heard of something scary happening as a result of that.

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