However, that’s me, and I understand that a lot (okay probably most) other people don’t feel that way. My husband and I have a general understanding. I use his nickname on our blog and I don’t go into specifics about what he does or non-fun details of his life and our relationship. For example, I would never say “CH and I had a fight about this” and the like.

Although, I’ve been referring to my newborn daughter by her first name ever since we found out she was going to be a girl, I haven’t published her full name, which doesn’t match mine, since I kept my maiden name.

As for stories, I will definitely tell those, since my daily personal column is a reflection of my life, and she is definitely in my life. However, I’ll stick by the same rules as the ones I have for my husband.

Photos: Well, CH has been featured on the blog once for Loving Day. But he doesn’t care if I post his photo. Betty will definitely be featured at different times. I know there our a few sickos out there, but I can’t let them dictate my content.

But here’s the thing: the majority of bad things that happen out there — including stalking usually happen to private citizens. As upsetting as it is to think about, there is no full-proof way to keep yourself or your children complete safe from sickos. And I don’t think that talking about them or posting their pictures on the internet necessarily protects them more than keeping them out of the public eye.

I think a firm education in stranger danger must be imparted to every child. I was a free range kid (walked to and from school and to the store) from the age of 6 b/c I knew not to ever, ever talk or go anywhere with someone who wasn’t in my family.

Another random point: There’s a new trend on to “out” popular anonymous bloggers. I think this will only get worse with time and keeping a truly anonymous blog will one day become impossible — unless people could care less about who you are. If a person truly wants to remain anonymous, then it’s probably best that you not keep a blog at all. Once it’s out there on the internet, you can’t really control who finds out about what you’ve written — even if it’s password protected.

Last thing: I’ve actually started a friends and family blog for Betty, which I hope to give her as a gift that she can take over for her 7th birthday. I can only hope that she will stick to the same rules for discussing me that I do for discussing her. Though, I don’t hold out much hope for that, since I can still how angry my mom got at me when I told my entire third grade class that she and my dad got in a huge fight and were thinking about getting a divorce. So karma might be lying in wait for me.

~ICLW

I am able to read blog posts offline as well because I subscribe to their feeds.

I was reading a blog online(I had missed it for about a week). So anyways, her latest post mentioned that she had deleted the previous post because she had posted uber-personal info about her family. *mentioned jail time of a close family member*

She might have deleted the post online. But her ‘previous post’ was intact in my offline feeds! I had the post, even though she wanted to ‘undo’ what she had written on that.

Anyway, I really don’t know, and obviously am figuring it out, too. I always imagine newborns to be less identifiable, and I don’t think I’d share their names ever. I just think if/when we get through this pregnancy, three baby boys all out in the world, I will be screaming it from the roof tops, and all better judgment might fly out the window.

I am not sure is my final answer. Can I phone a friend?

I do have a separate, private, unlisted, unsearchable blog for family and friends. On that blog, we do use our real names and post photos. Most of the time, my anonymous blog and my family blog are parallel – I post the same blog posts, but I substitute in the real names and locations in the family blog. My family blog has no references to infertility or anything sex-related (as appears in my anonymous blog). I also do not discuss ttc there. It is not currently password protected, as it is obvious from the limited traffic that only those who are close to us know about the blog. So, my anonymous blog gets fewer pictures but more personal posts.

Good luck with your decision!

*ICLW*

Doesn’t one of the big blog-hosting sites have a “by invitation only” feature? That way you wouldn’t have to worry about proud grandparents sharing the password (which would be a concern for us, too) because everyone would still have to go through you to get access.

We’ve dealt first-hand with a brother-in-law who doesn’t want any pictures of our nieces online, and frankly, it’s kind of annoying. For the first couple years he didn’t even want the pictures on Walgreens.com which is where I print my pictures from. The latest thing to come up is a webcam for the grandparents, which he’s against, because he doesn’t want images of the girls online. I see where he’s coming from, but I also believe that there are safe ways to limit exposure online and also, like Dooce said, it’s not that different than taking the kids out in public, because sickos don’t lurk exclusively on the internet.

I don’t think I’ll post many pictures to Facebook. As it is, I’m at 26 weeks pregnant and I just this week posted ultrasound pictures for the first time, and only posted 3 of the 40+ that we have. I’ve also only posted real information about my pregnancy twice. I figure if we’re close enough that we’re in contact outside FB, then they’ll know more details from talking to me and if we don’t talk outside FB then we’re not close enough for them to know more than I care to post. I also have my entire FB profile set so that only my “friends” can see and I don’t accept friend requests from anyone I don’t actually want to be friends with (some seem to just collect friends even when they don’t know the people). I know it can be hacked, though, so I’m still cautious about what I post.

Personally, I hope you do post pictures and a little info when your twins are born.

The overarching reason is that once it’s out you can’t go back. The toothpaste will not go back into the tube.

I am a caretaker of my children’s images/stories until they can responsibly reveal what they want.

Someday my children will be teenagers. They’ll have friends, non-friends, frenemies, employers. I do not want any of them finding fodder to use against my children on my blog.

In addition, I am teaching my children what internet privacy is and to honor and respect theirs.

Toothpaste. I don’t want to wish someday that I hadn’t squeezed the tube.

Instead, I just won’t squeeze the tube.

This is a great discussion, and I’ve tweeted about it.

I’m still snickering about the dude in your geometry class.

I don’t think I will post anything about my child’s development on my current blog though. Not so much because I’m afraid o creeps roaming the internet, but mainly because I want to keep my current blog as anonymous (and unknown from the majority of my RL contacts) as possible and not mix it with a place where family and friends would go to to read updates about our little one. Have been considering starting a pw-protected blog for that purpose, but not taken any steps yet to actually set one up. In any case it will probably also mean that my current blog becomes kind of dormant until we start thinking about a new round of IVF…

I do have a Facebook account, but don’t use it that much. Apart from my profile picture, I have never posted pictures on there and don’t think I will, even though my profile can be seen only by invited/approved connections. But we’ll see, if I decide to announce our baby’s birth on FB, I’m sure my FB friends will want to see a picture too!

I work in IT. I am painfully aware of the fact that (a) all posts to the internet are permanent, even if you delete them later (see http://www.archive.org) (b) there is an ever-increasing number of algorithms that can search and correlate data across the internet (c) companies and the government are happily marching towards a future of Total Information Awareness in which every piece of info about you that is public will be cross-correlated and used to make decisions about you (d) opting out of it is going to be increasingly difficult as we move more and more of our social networking and work and business lives on-line.

I am extremely reluctant to post personal information on-line. I have a facebook page but with super minimal info on it. I post no pictures on my public blog and am very careful about personally identifiable data there. I do maintain a private blog for my family and friends, it is individually password-protected but many of my friends forgot how to log in and so I have approximately 5 readers. That is still better than having my private life be public. And that is what posting on the internet is – totally, brutally, unprotectedly public.

I am also very aware that my future kid will be able, for all time, to read everything I put out publically and I am extremely careful what I write about him/her because of that.

So, no, no posting kid pics/stories, though it is possible I would break down and put some on Facebook.

http://www.stickyfeet2.net/2009/06/ask-jamie-childrens-privacy.html

As you know, I’m very open but I’m finding the comments here intriguing.

I don’t tend to post about potentially embarrassing things my kids do, especially my eldest, because I would hate for him to find it and be upset with me over it.

FB is a whole different thing. BUT my pics are only allowed to be seen by my friends.

Maybe I’m being naive, but that’s my two cents.

I use my real name and my real location on my blog (and even my dog’s real name! hehe) but I don’t plan on giving out any more information than that. No last names and no names of people in my life. I also don’t plan on ever posting identifying pics of myself, or others in my life, on my blog.

If I ever have a child, I have imagined creating a private blog that will either be password protected or invite-only. On that blog I would post stories and updates about pregnancy and my children, using both real names and identifying pics. This blog would be mainly to keep family in touch but I would post a reference to it on my current blog so blog-friends would be able to read if they wanted as well.

I’m not really all that concerned about keeping my identity a secret but on a web site that anyone at all could access, I think a little anonymity is a good thing.

Good luck with your decision!