Rachel, as my boys get older, I find the need more and more frequently to not blog about them to protect their privacy as much out of respect for them as out of safety concerns.  Believe me, many times I day I think “this is a blog post” but I almost always check myself when it comes to anything that will embarrass or upset them.  With my teens, this is almost everything - so lots remains in my heart to be pondered and never hits the blog.  It’s hard because you know other moms are going through many of the same issues, but ultimately I owe them that respect.

I don’t use my children’s names. They’re all still young so it’s not really about their privacy but I could see that becoming an issue. But for me it’s a safety issue.

This is a topic that has always intrigued me too, Rachel. As for me, I could never give my kids pseudonyms—I can’t even keep track of their 8 real names most days. I would also find it nearly impossible to write personally as I do without using names. My family is such a focus of so much of what I write that it would all just become very awkward.

I’ve always been very comfortable sharing photos too, but like you, I have found myself holding back more and more information about my older kids. I think pretty much anything a toddler does is fair game, but older kids have a real right to privacy and we should respect those boundaries.

Having a very un-bloggy, non-techie husband helps keep me in check. His perspective on what is and isn’t “bloggable” is very useful to me.

I used to use my children’s real names, and I used to blog about them a lot more. The hardest post to edit lately has been one I wrote about my adult son . . . I ended up deleting it, even though I edited it a lot in the writing. It wasn’t worth invading his privacy online to vent my frustrations with him.

Now, the kids have pseudonyms, and I ask the older ones about whether or not I have permission to post more private things about them. It’s one thing for me to say that I’ve had such and such a parenting issue with my kids . . . another thing entirely to tell the entire internets that a particular child has a particular problem. Simple cute things, of course, are bloggable at all times. Health and mental problems are maybe not appropriate.

In terms of “is it important” to keep your online identity secret . . . I think it is. I really regret that my real name is out there on the net. I just try to mitigate the damage these days by not linking my past web life to this new one. I don’t mention where we live, precisely, nor what our house looks like, and I never post pictures of my kids. Call me paranoid . . . but I prefer to think of myself as simply safeguarding my kids.

I use my children’s names but have not used the last name of our family, nor do I use my town’s name. While I will mention birthdays - I do not use dates. I figure some personal information (even if only to safe guard against identity theft) is best held back. My location is shared in my profile as 2 hours from the beach and 2 hours from the mountains in NC. Playful but careful!

Like all the mums who have shared thus far, I am careful about what I share in regards to my older children. I mean, do you share a first crush, an adult child’s first break up? Hardly. But a wedding or baptism?! YES! Again with caution as to location and last names for various safety issues. At some point I think we have all experienced (or will) some crazy person posting nasty comments on your blog and it’s just nice to know that “they” don’t know where you live and you have not made it easy for them to find you. 

Largely I think it is a matter of common sense, no?

I really don’t understand people who use pseudonyms….I mean, really, if I know your name is Rachel Balducci, there are ways I can find out more if I want to.  Plus, honestly, what is someone going to do with that info?

Well, I don’t have kids, so I don’t have as many concerns about other people’s privacy, but when I started my blog, I made a point of using pseudonyms - for myself and other people. I mostly just wanted a place where I could talk about whatever I wanted to talk about without being judged “in real life.” I’m not overly concerned with including details, because it’s not as much that I don’t want people reading to know who I am as that I don’t want to be easily google-able to people I know for real. (I still think blogging’s kind of nerdy, I just do it anyway.) It doesn’t bother me that someone who knows me could happen to stumble upon my blog and know it’s me, but my goal audience isn’t the people I already know, so my real name isn’t important.

(My other blog is basically just for family - it’s about genealogy - so I use the full names of myself and all my relatives and all our ancestors. That one was “members only” for a while, until I realized that I might have 5th cousins out there who’d never find us if they couldn’t access the blog.)

My children are still very young, so I feel like anything they say and do is pretty fair blogging game at this point.  Based on how much I feel comfortable sharing about my marriage (very, very little) I imagine that as my kids get older I’ll feel the same way about protecting their privacy. 

And actually, the only pseudonyms I use on my own blog are for my siblings, for the exact purpose of protecting their privacy.  My siblings have very unusual names, and especially as a group they’re quite Google-able.  I really dislike using pseudonyms but I feel that my brothers and sisters shouldn’t have to worry that their friends will find their sister’s blog - on which I sometimes post quite personal information about myself - while looking for information about them.

As for not sharing children’s names, pictures, etc. in the name of safety, I have to admit I don’t understand this.  Sure, the Internet can be dangerous for foolish teenagers using MySpace indiscriminately… but I’ve been blogging and sharing my kids’ pictures for years and have never gotten so much as a single comment that made me even slightly uncomfortable.  We don’t worry about saying our children’s names out loud in the grocery store because *strangers* might hear them, and the people in the grocery store just by reason of their proximity are in a much better position to find and harm our kids than is some random person surfing the Internet on the other side of the country.

I don’t think the Internet is more dangerous than the world at large; my personal opinion is that because of its limitations it is rather less so.  But if someone finds it so dangerous that they don’t dare to use their children’s real first names online, then my usual reaction is to wonder why they want to blog at all.  But I’m sure they have reasons I don’t understand.

I think about this EVERY DAY !!

Our family blog started out just for our long distance extended family, and then I wanted to try and keep it within the Catholic/Christian and if applies, home schooling families.I wanted to ‘give back’ the way we have been inspired by so many wonderful Catholic family blogs. But it QUICKLY spread…which I was glad it was being appreciated, because our family have NOT appreciated it. (Well, we have one who is obsessed with our blog…checking a zillion times a day, but has never said 1 word about our blog to us at ALL. ??? Weird story-but irrelevant.)

Since the beginning of our blog, I have used my kids first initial. I don’t really NEED to use their full name anyway. I even use our last name initial. But I have tried to take certain precautions in terms of location, etc.

But there are a few things that make my efforts about privacy/protection almost silly, and I think….aren’t people going to figure out who we are anyway?  Here’s a few reasons:

1) We live in a touristy town, and a lot of the places we are at normally, are pretty recognizable in photos. (I take LOTS of photos….it’s what I do.) So the general area of where we live can be eventually put together if one visits the blog enough.

2) I am pretty known in the area, because of my business. I have clients ALL over this area, including professional groups. I have wanted to link my business from my blog, because I could get business from it. (Some visitors happen to be localish…but not sure if they really KNOW us or not.)  My business is part of our income, so I have considered just linking my business website in the sidebar from our blog, and let people put 2 and 2 together, if they do. But I would never link my family blog from my business web site, because I do try to keep business and family life separate. I know it seems like the same thing…but one is ‘Here’s what I do if you need any work done’....but linking from my business site is more…‘Here’s my family’.  (Even though I work from home, I can manage this well. A lot of my work is on location-but when it’s home, my family is OUT.)  I WANT to tell people what I do!  My family/kids/schooling comes first. But I do have a successful business and would love to show people what I do for income. Which I happen to be passionate about too. Why am I hesitant?  It’s so hard to AVOID talking about it on our blog. It’s crazy.

Anyway…

3)  Here’s the silliest of all…..

In a matter of months, our family will be on national TV.  Catholic TV, to be exact.  The show is about our family here, So not only are we all on TV, with our names being used repeatedly…..but our businesses are mentioned in the show, and Fr. Bob goes to our blog (on our home computer here), WITH the kids, on TV! 

So really…what am I doing trying to be all private here??  lol

And then I think….how are our kids really in danger by being on our blog—-even with photos (I do use LOTS of photos) and names, ...even locations…anyway? What can really happen? We have family members that won’t allow their kids photos on the net, and judge us for doing so. But our kids are NEVER (ever) out of OUR care. NEVER. The judgers in our family put their kids on a school bus every day…let the kids go with other parents….let them run around the neighborhood. So which kids are really at more risk? 

VERY interesting post here….I will be reading every comment and thought!!

I do use code names For hubby and I too. I share pics, etc, but don’t name places, etc. I just want to be extra careful. I LOVE blogs!! But, I worry about the lurkers on the net. I don’t want names my kids would actually react to on the street if someone saw them.

Good post! Love reading the comments!!!

Great topic. I used to do a family centered blog so extended family could keep in touch with our lives. I ended up having to delete the blog, which included our young children’s names and photos, to protect them. Someone we know made inappropriate comments to the child of another family close to us and it called into question that person’s intentions. It scared me to think this person (and other possible predators) had access to my children, the thought of anyone looking at my children’s photos and having perverted thoughts about them made me sick so I deleted my account (though I’m sure my blog contents are somewhere in a database). It’s one thing to face the everyday risk of something happening to my children while out in public possibly bumping into unsavory characters. It’s quite another thing to expose my children to the possible horrible desires and intentions of those lurking on the internet by my own hand for my own sake. I do appreciate other bloggers sharing their family lives for it does comfort me in many ways, but I trust that they do so knowing the risks and blogging with common sense precautions. At the slightest hint of concern, I hope bloggers will take whatever steps necessary to protect themselves and their families no matter how much the blogs mean to them. The next blog I’m planning will focus on my own spiritual journey and I will use pseudonyms for my children if I happen to mention them. And I will be careful to use only photos that do not show my children’s faces.

I use family nicknames—easy to remember but also protects my kids’ privacy. If one of them wants to run for president some day, he (or she) might be less than thrilled that I spilled the beans about some struggle of their childhood.  My kids have not given me permission to blog about them, so this is my way of protecting their trust in me when they have an opinion about it someday.

Over a year ago, I closed off my first two blogs and started a new one without names. I wrote a post about it sometime early on, but one of the biggest things was Google. My husband is a professor and I didn’t want his students to Google his name and find our blog. I also want to have this blog for a long time (I love blogging) and I don’t want my kids to have to worry about friends finding it later on unless they choose to share it.

If someone really wanted to find us and hurt us, they could, but they’re more likely to find us some other way than through the blog. Basically, I hide our names to keep it that way.

I use first names only. Our location is in South Australia. Sometimes I mention the name of our home town but still I don’t feel too concerned that someone will be able to work out where we are.

I have often googled our full name and never has my blog coming up even if I put our home town in.

Pretty much like Danielle, I can not imagine not referring to my children by their names. Since after this summer, all will be teenagers, I find myself asking if they care if I share things in my blog. Usually If I think it is bloggable so do they and if I question the bloggability they probably will to. As far as safety, I really don’t feel that using a pseudo name is really protecting much. Even if a non relative or friend did read my blog, So much of me is my family so that is what I blog about. Even nameless the kids would be out there, not to mention that I love to post their pictures, so for me there is no reason to mix myself up trying to remember what I call who in blog land

This is a big issue for me. I have on occasion written about my children on my blog and have even posted a picture or two. But I never use their real name. I also only use my first name and do not pin point the city we live in. Although on occasion I make reference to the area we are from.
I have noticed that some bloggers have their kids splashed all over their blog. For me I am not comfortable with that.
While I believe mom blogs are safe and the majority of the readers are other mom’s, I also have to think about the random person searching mom blogs for other purposes that aren’t so nice. I’m not sure if it happens, but I think about it.
If I have to worry about pedophiles living in our neighborhoods and lurking around I certainly need to worry about them lurking on the internet.
This is why I choose not to put too much emphasis on my children for my blog.

I’ve thought about this topic many times.  As you can see, I use both my first and last name (as a writer who uses a blog as a promotional tool, that’s part of the deal.)  I also include photos of my family on my blog and GASP their real names.  I just don’t understand the concern.  I read many of these comments, and found Arwen’s to be spot on.
I might just be incredibly naive but I don’t see how putting their names and faces together on th internet puts them in danger.  They carry their names and faces all over the place out there in the real world every day.  I know there are all sorts of creepy people using the internet (the same creepy people prowling around my neighborhood, and yours.) Is posting a cute pic of one of my kids going to make him or her a target?  I don’t think so.

Well, we use pseudonyms, but they are linked to the real names. So I am sure most could figure out the names. It is a safety thing with me. Maybe I have read too many scary books or watched too many TV shows, but I know there are bad people out there. I also check the sex offender database. I post pics, but we try to not show their faces—challenging and it means missing out on some of the best pics. I post funny stories about them (well, I think they’re funny!), but mine are pretty young. And there are those stories that are just not right for posting. Oh, they are hilarious, and I am sure we all have those moments—especially if you have boys. But I do want to have some standards.  I know that if someone wants to find us they can. And I know the area we live in is pretty safe. But I am paranoid. And I would rather be paranoid with children then really regret not being paranoid. There is just too much bad stuff out there.

So I have a question for those that use pseudonyms for their children.

What exactly do you think people could do to your children if they knew their real name?

I’ve been online for ten years, blogging nine of those, from back in the old days when you had to code your own html for each post. I’ve been to a lot of online places and met a lot of online people . . . and some of them have not been nice. Creepy trollish stalkers have popped up in places I didn’t want them. People I’ve trusted have proved to be sociopathic or worse. Maybe that’s just a side effect of the fringe-type places I’ve been involved with over the years. But, yea. These people don’t need to know what my kids look like, or their names, or where we live. Someone who wanted to hurt me for whatever reason could easily figure out that hurting my kids is a much easier way to wound.

And . . . in actuality, it doesn’t take much to hurt a child badly. One of my daughter’s acquaintances sent her a vile text message last year . . . as a joke, he claimed. That one hateful message wounded her deeply. People with grudges do some weird sick stuff. The people with grudges against me, however, won’t be given an opportunity to lash out at my kids. And . . . when someone googles them in the future, they won’t turn up anything from their childhood, either.

I use code names for my kids. But, anyone could figure out their real names if they wanted too. It wouldn’t take a genious:D