Privacy and Pictures

I have always tried to be somewhat sensitive to the privacy of my children. Perhaps it is because I have been blogging for most of their lives and perhaps it is because I feel that is what I would want from my own parents were the situation different, either way I have truly attempted to respect their privacy over the years of my blogging.

One thing I have done is never post their pictures. I know this disappoints my family and it may make my blog less interesting to read because you don't have all those cute kid pictures to draw your attention. Still it is a concession I have made to my children to not have 6 years of their early childhood documented on the world wide web for anyone and everyone to see.

I will admit it I enjoy seeing photos of my other family members kids online. I think it makes their blogs more interesting and several times I have been tempted but I have held that line firmly over these 6 years and I now know that my children truly do appreciate it. My oldest is now 10, she was just 3 when we started, she is very thankful that the last 6 years of her life are not on display in photographic record and to her the privacy is extremely important and for that reason alone I am glad I made the choices I did along the way. I am not being critical of other families who choose to share pictures of their kids, I would say most people I know who blog do, and I respect that, but for our family this has been the right choice.

As the kids have aged I have tried to include them more in discussions about what I can and can not share here in this space. This actually helps explain a long hiatus of this blog as I was unsure what I could talk about while still being respectful of my kids since I started this as a homeschool blog and each of them went through a "don't post that on the blog" phase.

Recently they have asked me why I have stopped blogging and have at times asked me specifically if I would post something of theirs or something that happened in our lives on the blog, so I do. I feel like I am constantly doing this weird dance with them as they get older about what I can and should not say. I know I could just write whatever I want, I am after all their mother but I feel I need to respect their privacy, so I do.

I have made concessions and added pictures to my blog to help keep it more visually interesting but the photos you see in general are not of my children or our family members. At first I thought it was weird but now I have come to accept it as part of how I blog. In a world where everything can become somewhat "permanent" online I like that my kids privacy has been a priority for us. As we raise the kids and they begin doing things like blogs of their own, facebook and the like I will have a positive example to point to and help guide them as they begin thinking about what they will and will not share about themselves in the online world.