04 July 2008

pry-va-see or pri-va-see

You say to-mah-toe, or just mah-toe if you are Oliver. (Look here for more on British vs American pronunciation differences.)

Anyway, thanks to a wsj blog entry about blogging your kids' lives in (sometimes excruciating) detail, blogging and family privacy has been a hot topic this week all over the blogosphere. Most of the commenters on the WSJ blog were telling the author to password protect everything, or not put anything about the kids out there at all. The reasons ranged from worry about all the pervs to worry that the kids will hate their parents for being so open to nobody cares but the grandparents. Oddly enough, the commenter I identified with most is the one who suggested those promoting password protecting one's photos and blog had never seen elderly grandparents try to get over that sort of hurdle. If it's not easy one click access, my mom would probably never read "the blob" (as she calls it).

In our case, adding passwords now would be closing the door after the animals were all out of the barn. I have blogged, flickr'd, and twitter'd about the kids, starting a few months after Oliver was born. Even the usually very private CD uses our kids' names, and mine too, in drafts and other text he writes for the IETF. I recently became elevated from his "assistant" to family member. Woohoo! He's also set up our family website such that it is easily found by Google if you look for any of our names. 

And here I am this weekend, twittering endlessly as we try a more intensive effort to potty-train Oliver. I reported on the wet underwear (5 pairs before noon) and the triumph of a little pee in the potty after dinner. Yeah, he will probably hate me someday, though at the moment I am still wondering if he's going to still be in diapers when he leaves for college. Sorry, little bunny.

2 comments:

KG said...

Just put aside some $$$ for therapy now in an account for him. He'll be fine! :-)

How old is he, anyway?

ClumberKim said...

Oliver turned 3 in April. He will ALWAYS be my little bunny.

I'm optimistic that he will be like me, and find that chocolate is cheaper than therapy.