Asked and answered: The mommyblogger panel

Since Mary, mothergoosemouse, and Miss Zoot are all asking:

1. Do your kids know about your blog? If they’re too young to know, do you plan to keep it open to them as they get older?
No, they don’t know yet—they’re too little. Yes, I think I’ll tell them about it as they grow older—which will keep me honest when writing about them, and protective of their feelings.

2. Do you worry they may get embarrassed later? What would you do if they asked you to stop writing about them? What would you do if they wanted you to take it down all together?
So far, I’m not worried. I haven’t written anything but cute little-kid antics—nothing embarrassing. (I did refrain from posting a hilarious picture of Jo with magic marker all over her stomach because you could see a little too much skin--that worried me.) If, later, they ask me to stop writing about them, I would. But I like mothergoosemouse’s answer: I’d stop writing about things they said and did, but not about my feelings toward them. I wouldn’t take down my blog, but if they had strong objections to particular old posts, I might consider removing them.

3. Do you think our kids will appreciate the archive of their childhood? Do you wish your parents had done the same?
I hope they will. It’s part of my reason for doing this, since I have been terrible at keeping paper journals or even printing out any of the digital pictures I take.

I’d love it if I could read about myself and my siblings in my parents’ own words from our childhood. When I was 4, my brother turning 2, and my sister a baby, we lived in England for a year. My mother wrote long letters to my grandmother, since she couldn’t call her, and I loved reading those when I discovered them many years later. I still remember one line in particular: “Cathy [that’s me] is learning to read, [her sister] is starting to walk, and [her brother] is our chief dog-pile spotter.” Okay!

4. Do you go back and re-read your past parenting milestones? Do you realize you forgot a lot?
I haven’t been writing that long, but I still enjoy going back and reading my old posts from time to time. And I'm certain I'll like it more as time goes on.

5. What about your children’s friends/teachers/moms-of-friends? What if they found your blog? Do you tell your child not to tell anyone about it or are they free to talk about it? Do you worry their teachers or other parents will think it’s weird?

So far I’ve been pretty open about telling people about the blog. Again, like mothergoosemouse, I try not to say anything here that I wouldn’t say out loud in real life. However, since part of what I do here is talk about the differences between my little town and the cities I’ve lived in in the past, I haven’t told any of my neighbors or local friends about it. I’m not ashamed, nor do I intend any disrespect with my “can you believe this place?” posts; but sometimes I worry that people who live here might not get that. I suppose as Jo gets older and more prone to spilling family secrets I’ll have to rethink some of what I say, and perhaps remove an old post or two that I’d rather some locals not read.