Hello wonderful moms out there!

I started a blog last year to follow our homeschooling.  I mainly intended it to be for my family which is widespread throughout the country so they could keep up with us without me going crazy sending out letters/emails all the time.  I also made it public so that other moms could find it since I feel I have received so many ideas and wisdom from other mom's blogs.  Shortly after its beginning, I had a family member respond really negatively to my post on raising tadpoles (ie shouldn't be doing that, transporting eggs across state lines that we were actually breaking the law etc.).  She was really unpleasant about it and I was hit hard.  I continued to blog over the next several months but then began hearing murmurs from other blog mamas and some local friends about blogging concerns - inappropriate comments, safety etc.  THEN I got contacted by a rather unsavory ex-boyfriend (from more than 17 years ago!) and I really started having privacy concerns.  We work so hard to live separate and under the radar - raising as much of our own food as possible, shopping/eating local, using herbal medicine as our primary health care, saving money to go "off-grid" that then it doesn't seem to make sense to put our lives "out there" so much for all to see (and criticize, etc.).  I just feel like I'm taking and not giving because I do like to read about others and living so much in the country my contact with the web mamas gives me community and the ability to find others more like us when there aren't so many here in my physical location.

I guess I'm mostly venting but would value learning how others have wrestled with this issue and your thoughts on it..

BB,

Janelle in MI

Maybe you could start a totally new blog and make every effort to keep personal details to a minimum, i.e. no real names, locations, etc. Or start a private, invitation-only blog on blogspot. com. That's what we did for our Girl Scout troop.

Good luck!

well I find that there are a lot more privacy settings and comment moderation, and even blocking of certain people - so I am ok with blogging. :)

I had a friend who got upset about posting things about children because she said that it violates their privacy and they might hate it later, she even used to use nicknames when talking about her kids and then later stopped blogging and chatting altogether. I asked my girls if they minded if I mentioned their names or circumstances, etc and they said that since they have nothing bad to hide (not doing drugs, drinking, etc.) why should it matter? and it is mostly family and friends who know who they are and not by just a name - everyone else is too far away to even meet them.  - we do try to keep identity info more private for safety but that's it.

here's my blog if you want to check it out - I'd love to read yours too.

I have a blog about life in our gong show house. it is mostly for family, and the name is a bit obscure, so people can't really stumble upon it randomly. I started off using the super protected, invite only stuff, but have since made it public. I haven't had any problems, but if I did, I would probably put it back to invite only. As for peoples opinions... they are totally entitled to them... LOL! And some of them are totally entitled... LOL! I have actually been sort of chicken about blogging about the homeschooling journey, half dreading the "*gasp* "But what about socialization??!!" Not everyone in our family is thrilled about it (several teachers, and two principals in our immediate family). But that is their stuff, not ours. 

AS for the kids... I would not put anything in my blog that would be detrimental to, say, college applications, background checks... etc etc. However... I do not mince words, and I provide photo backup!!! LOL, my poor kidlets! One day, they will appreciate it. The pics of myself I used to beg my parents to burn are some of my favorites now. I plan on downloading my blog every six months, and preserving it for them to peruse once they have kids. I would have loved for my mom or dad to have chronicled some of our life as kids, the good, the bad, and the really, really embarrassing. It makes us what we are, and lots of our parenting roots are contained in the day to day minutes. I have some really hilarious pics of my boy (3) wearing his sisters (6) clothes. Mostly the really really girlie stuff, too! lmao!