An Account of Their Own
We always knew this day would come. The kids were so cute and little in 2006 when I started blogging; barely able to hold their own bottle and many years away from Facebook screeds. A bunch of other bloggers I read all built their families around the same time.
But these kids are now teenagers, and they’re getting social media accounts of their own.
I read a piece on Kveller where the author was talking about finding herself on her child’s social media account. She writes:
Like many parents navigating this digital Wild West, I’m constantly grappling with these kinds of dilemmas: privacy vs. supervision, trust vs. safety. I’m consciously trying not to start every sentence with “When I was a kid…”
But the questions I didn’t anticipate were the ones that involved me.
Her kid wrote about her once on her main Instagram account, but she hasn’t given her mother access yet to her secret Instagram account. So who knows what she’ll find when she goes on that one?
You can set limits for what your child can do online, but how do you set boundaries that you personally trespassed in the past? It’s not just kids; anyone can write about you.
I’ve written about the kids; always respectfully, with an eye towards not embarrassing them. They know everything I’ve written on here about them, and I still read them any post where they make an appearance before I post it. They’ve vetoed a few or asked me to change lines here and there.
And maybe that’s the only thing keeping me from quaking in my boots. I’m hoping they’ll give me the same respect now that they’re in a position to post about all of my foibles.
Would you be okay with someone else writing about you?
5 comments
What a loaded question!! I’ve been on the receiving end of some online attacks and it was highly stressful (and the solidifying factor for why that relationship was dead). But I think it’s hard to completely avoid someone writing something about you. The trick is doing it respectfully.
I love that you are modeling that for your kids. I think that bears far more weight that just talking about it. And given that I think you model this in other aspects of your life, I think the foundation for how they write about their family and loved ones is there.
Though I shudder at the idea of a secret social media account.
Didn’t some famous author say that if you want people to write nice things about you, you must give them a reason to do so? (I’m probably butchering this quote.)
On that basis, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. 🙂
Heh. I cannot think of a better approach than yours, honestly: model the behaviour you want to see, make the expectations explicit. Really applies to all parenting, no?
Only if it’s in glowing terms!
The Golden Rule, baby.
And then you hope that what you’ve put out comes back to you (assuming you put out careful and considered words about others).