adoption, parenting

Help Me Mamas

Shanny

Ladies, I need your help.  This whole impending motherhood thing is new to me.  Add that to the interwebs and it can get a little complicated.  So, tell me….

  • Do you blog about your kids?
  • Do you use their real names?
  • Do you show their pictures?
  • Do you use your real name?

See, I feel that people are generally good.  That the people that read my blog are doing it for various reasons, but one of them is probably not to gather info for their detailed murderous plans.  If internet stalkers were using my blog to kill me and my family, then they could have done it already.

But then there’s the privacy issue.  I don’t want to cross the line when it comes to my kids.  But where do you draw the line? Part of me feels like blogging with their real first names & pictures isn’t going to be harmful.  But the budding Mama Bear part of me is a little worried.  I suppose that’s CSP’s influence.

Thanks for your help!

Published by Shanny

I am a married mom to a pughuahua, a French bulldog, & a feist. I'm a Color Street stylist, a major planner, loud talking, and big laughing. I started this blog in August 2001.

9 thoughts on “Help Me Mamas”

  1. Ok, here’s what we did/do. Since privacy is really important when fostering to adopt, we blogged using different names. AND, the only people that knew the URL were family. And, technically, I think we were probably breaking privacy laws by doing that. The best thing to do is keep the whole thing private. One goof up and you’ll have a case worker on your heels. Go ahead and blog. Keep it separate. And only give family and CLOSE friends the URL.

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  2. Well, since I don’t use my real name to blog it didn’t seem right to me to use Noodle’s real name.

    I do use some pictures of her but none with identifing clothing and or locations.

    I blog about her but only things that she would not be upset to stumble upon and read for herself.

    Your blog is much more popular than mine is though.

    I think at first I would be more cautious than not and see how you feel as you go.

    (With that said you have open up a Ling Ling secret blog I hope you share the URL with me 🙂 )

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  3. Here’s my take — I only sent emails to family and friends about Asia until she started High School. After that, we allow her to have a facebook page (as long as we are her “friends”) and we monitor everything she says and does. We use her real name, but make sure not to write something that may affect her life chances (does that make sense??). We want her to know that, unlike in my day, you are accountable for everything you say and do (because it lives forever on the internet). Hey, at least we are here to guide her–.

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  4. I say once the adoption is final you can. I mean you blog about Jake and Joey, show their pictures and use their real names. What is the difference? I know while still fostering you can’t, atleast Edwin and Kim couldn’t, but once the adoption was final they put Julie on their myspace and facebook pages (they are not bloggers). You should change your blog to non searchable, then it won’t be picked up on google searches.

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  5. I don’t have kids, of course, but if I were adopting a child through a foster program, I wouldn’t post my name, their name or their photos. They could have crazy prior parents and they might find you. That would be weird for you and them.

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  6. I read a lot of blogs and most of the parents use the proper names of the children. They are very careful to not mention any last names or even their address. Some of the blogs I followed went private as soon as the child was placed with them. It is a lot to consider, but if you can block your blog from being searched you will not have the worry of just some weirdo looking at your pics. You could go private and just give the url and password to those you want to share this journey with.

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  7. If I go back to blogging when we have children, I plan to make my blog private and only allow access to family and friends (including very good bloggy friends). I have not decided whether I would use their names or not. I’m a fan of using initials, which is what I did in the past with discussing certain friends on my old blog. Whatever you do, make sure you AND CSP are both comfortable with the decision.

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  8. I have my blog set to unsearchable. I do use photos of the kids, but I try not to be too specific, or if it’s, say, the Louisville Zoo, it’s usually posted after the fact. I’ve never used my last name, or have been too specific with addresses and such. I just try to use common sense. Twitter is a whole other animal though… as that is usually real time. I catch myself alot with that one.

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  9. One thing that I do *not* do is share any birthdates on my blog. I used to put in my sidebar that Lucas was born on X/XX/XX, but I realized how bad that was. Now I just say that we have two children, Lucas and Meredith. Also, I try not to blog about the fact that we’re leaving on vacation or something, because of course that’s an open invitation!

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