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Health & Fitness

The Breeders: Giving The Kid Some Privacy

Keeping the wierdos at bay and making sure what I put on the internet now doesn't embarrass the crap out of him at fourteen.

 

A family friend recently mentioned that referring to the kid as "the kid" on this blog was a little odd. She knows how much I love and adore him, but referring to him that way seemed to keep him at arm's reach.

She's right. I am keeping him at arm's reach, but not from me — from you.

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There is a conundrum that faces mom bloggers: just how much do we share? The success of mommy blogging mostly comes down to the fact that people love babies and so the more you share of your baby the more successful you seem to be.

But, mommy blogging (and personal blogging in general) is a relatively new phenomenon and so we are still sorting out just what the consequences of putting stories and pictures of yourself and family for the entire internet to see for all eternity might be.

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Actually, scratch that. We know what the consequences of putting yourself on the internet are. For all the positive community spaces that are created on the internet, there are people that want to rain on your parade. There so many that the mother of all mommy bloggers has actually figured out a way to make money off the the trolls

Luckily, the Patch seems to be a civil bunch thanks to the fact that offline we are still neighbors (and we have a tireless editor), but the anonymity of the larger internet seems to bring out the worst in some people which is why my personal blog was largely anonymous (I said "was"). 

But, when I started this blog I didn't want to be anonymous. Anonymity seemed to defeat the purpose of a community blog. And I'm happy to say that it has been a good decision — y'all are a nice bunch of folks.

However, telling the internet who I am and telling the internet who my baby is (and what town we live in) are two very different things. 

I was raised in the era of "stranger danger." It's why you never get in the van with the guy offering you candy, and why I never got to get my name embroidered on my backpack. And that is why the kid is "the kid." Telling the internet what the kid's name is feels like embroidering it on his backpack. 

Sure, I post pictures of him, but while he IS ridiculously cute and his own special snowflake, babies look strikingly the same. So revel in the baby pictures now, because as he gets older I'll be posting far fewer of them. 

Which gets us to the second conundrum. This question of the kid getting older is the part of mom blogging we have yet to figure out. We've yet to hear what the subjects of all these mommy blogs think of their personal history and baby photos being posted all over the internet. Will it lead to years of therapy or will they appreciate having a record of their childhood? Maybe a little of both?

I'm not sure, which is why I won't judge the moms who share their kids' names with us, but for now the kid's internet backpack will remain name free.

Besides, hopefully calling the kid "the kid" will make it harder for his future employer (or god forbid, future bully) to Google him. Well, they will at least have to be smart enough to figure out what my name is first...

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