Though I write about my children, I have taken steps to protect their privacy. I use false names for them on my blog (though I have used their real names in print, and probably would do so again). I try not to use their names in social media. I intentionally leave out certain details of their lives -- dates, time periods, locations, names. I have told bits and pieces of their stories, but out of order, making it difficult to piece together. I don't use my full name on the blog, and I try not to link my professional and social profiles to my blog profile, though it would be nice to use it as a writing credit (because a blog with 30 readers would be a great launching pad for a book, right?).
I suppose a really determined person could study these bits of information and fill in the details, but that would be pretty stalker-y, and I don't think I attract that kind of interest.
Initially, my motivation for leaving out details was to keep our family from being exploited. It sounds paranoid, but I was afraid that someone might contact us and claim to have information about a birthfamily, for example. I wanted to leave enough unknown that they would have to provide me with the information and not parrot back what I'd already said. I think the likelihood of that sort of thing happening in the future is increasing.
More recently, my goal has been never to provide enough information for my children's acquaintances to be able to Google them and find out things they shouldn't know. As Michele pointed out in a comment on my previous post, kids could potentially use that kind of information to embarrass or even bully one another. Once you post too much information, you can never take it back.
Of course, "too much information" is in the eye of the beholder. Writer Anne Lamott, whom I usually love, has put in writing some extremely personal things about herself and her son, Sam. She says, "Audiences only know the stuff I've chosen to share with them," but considering what she has put out there -- she has written about his birth, infancy, and childhood; his teen sullenness, drug use, and stint in rehab; his reunion with his absent father; and his becoming a teen parent -- you have to wonder what she could possibly have left out. (For Sam's sake, it's best not to think too hard about it.)
To try to clarify how much is too much, I went to the source: my daughters. Their thoughts are reflective of their current social development. Bess and May wanted to be "interviewed" together. The discussion went something like this:
Me: What about adoption stuff?
You should use real names in a book. You have to tell the truth. But ask your kids if it's okay
to say something.
Me: So what are some things you wouldn't want me to talk about on my blog?
May: Nothing too personal, like your social life.
Bess: My rule is it's okay as long as if one of my friends reads it I won't be embarrassed about
it.
Me: So I shouldn't say if you like some guy, right?
The girls nodded their heads vigorously.
You can see that their chief concern is social embarrassment. Details of their childhood and origin are okay, if told with dignity. Anything that could possibly be construed as embarrassing -- and, having once been a teenage girl, I would imagine that encompasses a great deal -- is out.
I talked to Ella separately.
Me: Do you think it's okay for me to write about you on the Internet?
Ella: Sure.
Me: What about in a book? Could I use your real name?
Ella: Yeah! Would I be famous then? I want to be famous.
Um, okay. The truth is, my kids are publicity hounds. They have had their pictures in the newspaper before, and they take a keen interest in their own press coverage. I've shown them my magazine and newspaper articles, and they're mostly
interested in the pictures. They do read my blog, or they could read my blog, if they wanted to; they think it's boring. Perhaps that's another way I protect their privacy -- by being so boring no one under the age of 35 will be interested in anything I have to say.
As long as I use the guideline WWMTSD -- What Would My Teenage Self Do -- I think I'll be okay. For now. But someday that will not be enough.
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