There are a lot of things, apparently, that Facebook must do if they don’t want to lose all their users to other social media sites, so if they’re keeping a list, I’d like to add one more: family accounts.

Facebook has personal accounts and public pages, but there are no family accounts.  A family can start a secret group and invite people to join, but that’s about it.  Because there is no other outlet on the site, parents share pictures and news about their kids on their personal page, subjecting everyone in their friends list to a blow-by-blow of the t-ball game or ballet recital unless they share those sorts of posts to a select group of friends.

Family pages would fix three problems with one tweak.

I think the obvious one in this community is that Facebook tends to be a painful space for those building their family.  When you just got another negative beta, it’s hard to go online and be bombarded with pictures of babies.  Family pages would pull all those updates and photos off the personal pages, so you could be friends with someone and choose whether or not you also subscribe to their family page.

Also, many people don’t friend someone because they want to know about their kid.  They friend someone because they want updates about the person they’re following.  But directly in conflict with that is that many people state that they use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends from afar, updating them with news about the family.  People could use their personal accounts for their own news, while sharing family news on the family page.  That way, their co-workers and old high school friends won’t have to read family news unless they also friend the separate family account.  Personal pages could go back to being about the person.

Or, really, some people won’t need a personal page at all.  If all they want to do is post family news, they could just have a family account.

The last problem that could be fixed is that children enter Facebook without training wheels.  They go from the offline world to the Facebook world without any instruction on how to comport themselves online.  Children learn a lot by observing modeling behaviour, therefore, a family could use the family account to post together for several years before they release children at 13 (or older) to post on their own personal account.  Family accounts could have multiple administrators, and children could learn in a safe(r) space what to post and what not to post before they need to start navigating their own personal page amongst their peers.

Yes, there are sites such as eFamily or Famster, but we all know the problems that arise from having more sites to check.  We simply stop using them after the initial set up (uh… like Ello?).  Making a family account on Facebook meets people where they already are.  We could keep reinventing the wheel, but doesn’t it make more sense to focus on making the wheel better?

So Facebook, make your site better.  Hey, you may even keep some teenagers around in the process.

What do you think of separate family accounts?  Would you start one?  Or would it just become another divide: would you rather keep family pics and news in the personal account?

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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It’s Monday the 13th.  Which has no scary significance, except that it is housed in October, and everything is sort of scary in October.

I used to love horror films.  Not just the good ones.  I saw the first 6 Children of the Corn films.  (Yes, there were more than 6.)  The Nightmare on Elm Streets.  The Friday the Thirteenths.  Poltergeist.  Blair Witch Project.  And horror books: everything Stephen King.

And then one day, the world started looking too scary, and I couldn’t understand the point in trying to scare myself when there were so many real things to be scared of in the here and now.  And I never saw another horror film.  Though I have a soft spot in my heart for vampires and haunted houses.

Horror films for you: yay or nay?

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored posts.

I had to be straight with the Wolvog: his Halloween costume was a pain in my ass.  He wanted to be the 10th Doctor, which seems as if it should be an easy costume, but suits are expensive.  Did he want to be the Tardis?  I could inexpensively turn him into the Tardis.  No, he did not want to be the Tardis, at least not as his first choice.  He suggested that he go as the 13th Doctor and wear whatever he wanted to wear.  Which was a sweet solution, but it sort of broke my heart.

I had made a promise to the universe when I was waiting for them that I would always furnish my children with kickass Halloween costumes.  I could not back down on that promise.  But that promise did come with a $20 cap.

He went to school feeling a little down about the whole thing, and I went to the local thrift shop to see if I could find something to turn into a pin-stripe suit.

I had never been in this particular thrift shop and didn’t have high hopes, except that I had received a somewhat anonymous email to go check the thrift shop.  Who doesn’t follow instructions that come in an anonymous email?

So I went into the childrens’ clothing room and there, hanging at the end of the row so it was the first thing I saw was a blue, pin-stripe suit jacket.  Massively too large but still, exactly what I needed.  I took it down and went to pay for it because… I was just so happy.  Did the anonymous townsperson put the jacket there for me?  Unlikely by the sound of the follow-up email.  Did he see it there and remember the plea I sent out to our town listserv?  Maybe?  Or perhaps it was just random luck.

It only got better because the jacket was $3.  THREE DOLLARS.  I splurged and bought the boy a Doctor-looking tie.

I went home on a retail high and pretty much shook with excitement all day until the Wolvog came home.  He made me take dozens of photos of him posing in his costume. (Though my mother is helping me to take the whole thing in about 8 sizes…)

Okay, that wasn’t a good example because I didn’t make myself happy.  The random townsperson made me happy.  The store made me happy.  And that is a crap shoot.

But I can’t stop talking about his $3.50 Halloween costume.  That has to be a record.

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When downloading the Serial podcast, I noticed there were a bunch of other podcasts on the “popular” list, and I chose to subscribe to the Nerdist podcast.  The only drawback is that they sort of come fast and furious if you are someone like me who has very little time to listen to podcasts.  It makes me a little anxious when I open the podcast app and see 14 podcasts awaiting listening.

But they’re really funny, and it is nice to have a disembodied voice telling you a story.  The one I just listened to was Spike Feresten.  He wrote for Seinfeld and Letterman and has great stories about being a comedy writer.  He also had a very moving story about having his show canceled and losing his father in the same time period, and it put the idea of disappointment (especially in the arts) in perspective.

It sort of felt like the podcast I needed to hear.  Sometimes we don’t get the podcast we want, we get the podcast we need.

So that is making me happy: the disembodied voices telling me funny stories.

What is making you happy this weekend?

And get your posts ready because tomorrow is another #MicroblogMonday.

I lost a lot of weight about two years ago, which necessitated buying several new pairs of pants and jeans.  I was dumbfounded when I saw the size on the pants.  It was much lower than I had worn in the past.  And I’m going to admit this: I was between two sizes and I went with the smaller one ENTIRELY OUT OF VANITY FOR WHAT WAS WRITTEN ON THE TAG.

Yes, I needed to shout that because it is now two years later, and I have put back on some of the weight.  Just enough so that if I had bought the larger size, I would still be smoothly sailing through winter.  But I didn’t.  I went with the smaller size.  Because I was short-sighted and vain and waaaaaaaay too proud of myself.  Like stupidly proud.  As in forgetting that I always bounce back up a little bit to settle in this weight range.

So my pants are snug.

I dug back out MyFitnessPal… who is really MyFitnessFrenemy… and I am attempting to eat better so I don’t need to buy new pants.

I am considering getting a tattoo on my upper leg so I’ll see it every time I go clothes shopping which reads: buy the larger size.

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Ann from Tragic Optimist wrote a board book for kids, and I got to see it this week.  It’s called Glasses, and the book has its own site.  It’s exactly what you think: a very cute book for getting kids comfortable with their glasses. (Or, I’d argue, a good book for ALL kids to read, especially when they start noticing differences between kids.)  The rhyme is upbeat, the photographs colourful, and the glasses all cool. (Yes, these kids are cooler than you are.)  In getting a copy to read with your child (or for a family member or for your school, etc), you’re not only opening them up to being comfortable with their glasses or their friend’s glasses (not to mention opening up a discussion on any external device that helps a person get through their day such as a hearing aid or wheelchair), but you’re supporting a member of the ALI community.  Double plus.

Glasses wearers unite!

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Yes, this is your weekly reminder to back up your blog, social media accounts, and email.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Ellora’s Cave Sues Dear Author: Hello Steisand Effect” (Smart Bitches Trashy Books)
• “More Closure” (Serenity in Chaos)
• “He’s Not Scary.  He’s a Little Boy” (Jameson’s Journey)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Serenity in Chaos has a post about parallel universes playing host to our unmade choices.  I love her description of what it felt like to have her reality and her dreamworld merge inside her mind.  She writes: “I gasped within, because at that exact second, there was no difference between my reality and my parallel universe. There was no need for the parallel universe anymore. It was breathtakingly beautiful and surreal at the same time.” Isn’t that gorgeous?

Hope Floats Amongst the Cherry Blossoms has a post about the far-reaching effects of infertility; namely, the other people affected when you can’t have a child.  She writes about observing her father at the pool looking wistfully at some kids splashing around in the water.  She wonders aloud what will happen if she can’t give him a grandchild: “If I can’t give him one, will he ever get to be in that moment again… to experience the joy of a child that is part of your family, your inner circle and play?  Has the moment passed?  Has it passed for me?  And for him?”  I had a lump in my throat reading the post.

Earth & Ink has a post about why she continues to blog even though she cannot write about the largest thing happening in her life.  She explains: “In offline life, I’m in the middle of something I can’t write about. So I am chilled. Quieted. In multiple ways, silenced.  It is distressingly similar to being Ariel and having had someone has put my voice in a box. Although granted, a bit more subtle. And lots less fairy dust.”  I like this post because I could not only feel the weight of having something huge closing off your voice, but I could also sense the light at the end of her tunnel, ensuring she can speak again.

Lastly, in the microblog world, More Than a Mom has a very moving post about the presence of her mother being with her as she runs.  It was so quiet, so brief, that it almost felt like a sigh.  A sigh of a post.

The roundup to the Roundup: My pants are too small.  (Or I am too large.)  Glasses!  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 3rd and 10th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Clarification at the Bottom

Josh and I started listening to This American Life’s podcast, Serial.  We place my phone on the bed between our two pillows and lie on our sides, listening to a disembodied voice tell us about a murder of Hae Min Lee that took place in Baltimore in 1999.  While the narrator is talking, my mind is simultaneously processing the facts and imagining details from my own life.  Could I tell you what I was doing on a specific day last month?  Whom I saw?  Whom I spoke to?  What I ate?  Did Adnan Syed really kill his ex-girlfriend, or is there a man in my state serving a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit?  Will the answer be apparent by the end of the final installment?  The story is gripping; I keep checking the app to see if the next installment is in because I don’t know which day it will normally be released.

Gripping.  That word.  Isn’t it one we usually associate with entertainment value?

It only took a few minutes into the first segment for an uncomfortable question to bubble up in my brain: was I bearing witness or was I being entertained?

If I was bearing witness, I was participating in something important.  I was listening to a story that honoured the end of Hae Min’s life and tried to bring about justice.  If I was being entertained, I was the lowest form of human being; someone who derives pleasure by passing the time gawking at someone else’s misfortune.

Two segments in and I’m still not sure which side I fall on this line.

Entertainment or pleasure are perhaps the wrong words.  What do we call rubbernecking?  Unless we’re slowing down with the intention of helping, looking at the accident as we pass merely to look at the accident feels like emotional trespassing.  The subjects never asked to be watched.  And even if the case of a blogger placing their story online, they didn’t do so for anyone else to gawk at.  They wrote out their story to take it off their heart or inform their family (or long-time readers).  And yet people come in droves when there is a loss, when there is a mishap, when the drama is high.

There is also the greyer truth that many infertility bloggers state: there is a readership when they’re going through treatments or processing a loss.  But the moment they get pregnant, all those readers disappear.

[I would argue that it is just as common for infertility bloggers to stop blogging once they get pregnant, which may be because they’ve gotten busy but could also be seen as using their readership to get through a moment of life and then disappearing as soon as they’ve gotten what they needed.  That’s neither here nor there.  I only point it out because there is more than one side to that rise and fall in readership situation.  And there are millions… well, at least, dozens… of reasons why people stop reading or stop writing.]

It begs the question: when we read an infertility blog, are we doing so to bear witness to someone else’s experience, or are we reading for rubbernecking-like entertainment? 

It points more towards rubbernecking-like entertainment if the readership dries up once the dramatic moments of infertility have passed.  BUT it’s also possible that the readership dries up because our role of bearing witness is over.  What are we bearing witness to after the moment has passed?

I mean, beyond regular, everyday life.

There are the people we read because we love their blog.  We stick with their story simply because we like the writer, not because of any detail in their life.  And then there are the people that we click over to read because someone has posted a link to post highlighting a horrible moment in their life.  On any given day, we encounter both situations.

Unless we’re reading a blog to offer support or learn about life from someone else’s point of view, looking at a post about someone else’s tragedy is akin to rubbernecking.  I try not (though how successful am I?) to click over to look at a post unless I’m doing so for one of those two reasons because Allison’s situation with Zoë has always been in the back of my mind.  So many people clicked over on the day her daughter died, but how many of those people stuck around to help her through the emotional fallout of the loss?

The point is that I don’t think we can paint all infertility blog reading with one brush: I think sometimes we read because we’re bearing witness and sometimes we read because we’re doing a bit of rubbernecking.  But I do think it’s important to ask ourselves which one we’re doing.

I still don’t know which one I’m doing by listening to details of a murder on Serial, though I know I grow uncomfortable when I see the show described as compelling or addictive or riveting, words I associate with entertainment value.

Clarification:

I just wanted to add that I think there are just as many reasons for reading as there are for not reading.  There are the people I read because I’ve read them for years and years, and I am invested in their life.  There are the new people I start reading because I find them and their voice compelling.  They make me think or laugh or feel something, and therefore, I add them to my feed reader.  But we also know there are people out there who “hate read,” specifically reading blogs of people who annoy them. (I’m going to admit, I don’t really get this.  It’s hard enough keeping up with the people who make me happy.) And I think there are definitely rubbernecker readers.

Listening to Serial has made me wonder whether I’m stretching my mind by listening to the facts the podcaster was able to undig.  Or am I bearing witness, honouring Hae’s life?  Or am I being entertained?  Because I know I am interested in this story.  I am waiting for the next segment to be released.  And doesn’t it fall into the realm of entertainment if I’m treating it like that?  Is listening for Hae, or is listening… for me?