Censoring Your Blog

Lomwefgbnbv

Wed, 2010-03-03 17:40

Hi everyone I'm new here and thought I'd respond to this. I love to blog and my blog does get personal at times. When my 16 yr old daughter first started reading my blog she was like, "omfg Mom" (with the eye roll.) But blogging is my way to express myself and I do get criticized occasionally but I am who I am. Thanks for letting me join momversation. Hugggggs, Barb

Sun, 2009-02-08 03:20

My blog is about becoming my mom, and I went through the whole falling out with her after she discovered it (never thought she would) and was devastated by the level of detail I included. I have been more careful of late, but her main argument still concerns me: "I'm not a public person, and you're making me one!" (this is what happened when mom found out about the blog.)

Well, yes. But all the mommybloggers do it!

But really--is it wrong to thrust someone who doesn't have a choice into the blogosphere? I don't think so, if there's a purpose for it, and you're careful. And yes, writers do write about their lives, whether penning fiction or not. (That doesn't mean everyone will always understand it ... )

Wed, 2009-02-04 08:38

I used to have a blog on livejournal. I still have it, but I seldom post. Everything used to be public. Then an ex-friend started getting stalkerish, so everything that I post is friends-only.

I still have my live journal account, but I only use it for reading up on my friends now. I put everything in a paper journal. I got that idea because I'm intensely into genealogy. I wish that I knew more about some of my ancestors, but they didn't really leave any written records of themselves behind. So, for the last three years, I've written in a book. At the end of the year, the book is put away with photo albums and such.

I sincerely hope that when I'm long dead, my great-grandchildren will have it to read. I don't censor myself when I write it, but I do write it with the expectation that it will some day be read by someone else. It's a bit of living history.

Tue, 2009-02-03 11:41

Yes, this is a fantastic topic. I censor too much on my blog, to the point where I hate it (not that I ever wrote anything interesting to begin with). Honestly, I'm jealous of you all for being so real on your own blogs, and I wish I could just start over.

And does anyone else find it strange that Heather made Kathie Lee Gifford uncomfortable? The same woman who spoke about her own children, Cody and Cassidy, on a daily basis on television throughout the 90s?

Tue, 2009-01-27 15:54

Thanks for blogging about this topic! Seems a lot of people can really relate.

Thu, 2009-01-29 07:58

I podcast anonymously about my life. My X husband sued me because he did not like my perspective of my life.

New York Supreme Court granted me the right to continue my podcast in the name of our country's First Amendment. Although it cost a pretty penny to defend. X didn't have a problem cheating and lying, he just had a problem with me talking about it.

Ironically his complaint only landed us a front page story in the New York Times and featured on Nightline. (And through it all, we have remained anonymous -- we were shot in shadow!!)

If we censor our writing/speech we handicap our truths. Write on....

http://www.divorcingdaze.com

Tue, 2009-01-20 07:06

Oh ladies, ladies... your insights are wonderful, thank you SO much for sharing them.

Unfortunatey, I don't think they'll do me a damn bit of good.

This topic... censoring blogs for the sake of saving relationships... is the ONLY reason that keeps me from starting a public blog of my own, in spite of my own almost-too-strong-to-deny desires and my friends' repeated requests. It's comforting to know that so many others deal with this issue as well.

I am a writer by profession, and have worked as both a journalist and a marketing writer for the past 15+ years. So it only stands to reason that I would be a veteran blogger, right? Wrong. Why? Because ultimately I'm afraid of the damage I can (and inevitably will) do to my relationships if I am true to myself and write what I want to write.

I wear my feelings the way a girl wears a fabulous red trenchcoat in March -- with a spring in her step and a smile on her face for the whole world to see. There's never, EVER, a question about how I'm feeling at any given time, good or bad. (Good thing I'm a happy person by nature.) I've always been that way... and I can't imagine having to change who I am when writing in my blog.

Scoot over, Alice, we're in the same boat. My hubby and son, who are easygoing and amazing, would have no problems with my blog. And I LOVE my job, no problems there. But LORD ALMIGHTY, I could create an entire blog about my mother that would attract thousands... but the result would, of course, be disastrous. I also stand a good chance of alienating my sisters, insulting a couple of my friends, and being run out of my neighborhood the way medieval townsfolk would expel an ogre.

At this point you're probably thinking: "Sister, you don't need a blog... you need a shrink." Well, the shrink might not be a bad idea... but you see, writing IS my therapy. Dumping all the crazy shit -- hilarious and catty and bright and painful and gracious and glorious and tragic -- out of my head and bouncing it off of others helps me make sense of it all and, ultimately, heals me. It's that simple.

But when that healing process has the power to hurt people you care about, it's not so simple anymore. And most of the time, that just really pisses me off.

Let me be clear: I'm not an unstable, bitter woman who wants to talk trash about my family every day. In fact, I'm generally a positive person who's fun to be around, and most people tell me I'm a great storyteller... which is why I'm always asked why I don't have a blog. (And why I haven't written a book.) But I'm irked by the fact that once in a while, if I have an experience -- or a day, or a month -- that's not all ponies-and-rainbows, I can't share it for fear of repercussions... like being left out of the family will.

I simply refuse to stifle certain observations, thoughts and feelings, so I've taken an "all-or-nothing" position: If I can't have an "all-honest, all-the-time" policy on my blog, then it's no blog for me.

Maybe someday I'll make peace with compromise. But until then I'll just hang out here, where my mother can't find me, and take baby steps with you girls. Hope that's ok. :)

So happy to be here! Thanks again for sharing... and for listening.

Sat, 2009-01-17 12:17

This is a great topic, one I think we've all come up against if we've blogged more than twice.

Unlike Dooce, I really DO have like thirty people who read my blog, at least regularly, and only about half of those know enough about the "real" me to really connect intimate details with the me who lives offline. I think I give the illusion of 100 percent openness and sharing-ness, but really, it's in the tone. I only blog about 5 percent of my life, and even less of my son's and husband's. But, like Rebecca, I've always used real names, and am something of a picture addict.

I would like to say I exclude the other 95 percent out of deference to the privacy of my loved ones, but just as often it's because the rest of our life is, well, boring, at least to outsiders. It might be of paramount importance to my husband and me that we find our checkbook before the mortgage is overdue, but it doesn't make for the most compelling blog entry.

That said, I think I've always censored to an extent. To me, it's the permanence of what's written even more than the nature of it. I always remember a particularly bad day in eighth grade, when I wrote a long-ass manifesto about how so-and-so was a bitch/jerk/slut/ho/dumber-than-asparagus poser (that was my exact phrasing), and how we only palled around with her because her mom was a teacher, and she'd better watch it. I was the poser, naturally. I was then, as I am now, as non-confrontational as it is possible to be. But my brilliant friend, after I'd passed her the note, chose to read it in the one class that was filled with all the friends of the subject of my maledictions -- and taught by her mother. I was pretty much screwed.

And there've been other times I was sort of aghast at something I've written. I've written articles for numerous newspapers, and if even a tiny error creeps in that effects other people, and they call you on the phone all mad, and you then see that error printed thousands upon thousands of times, and your mom clips out one and puts it in a scrapbook anyway ... it's kind of a spirit crusher.

All that to say, my epiphany was in eighth grade when I realized that committing my opinions to writing made them permanent, and it freaking gets around. My reminder was when I became a journalist, and it freaking got around even more. And the Internet way trumps both of those. Once it's on the Internet, you can't get it back.

And I do worry about protecting my loved ones, of course. I'm fiercely protective of my family. And I would never intentionally do anything that compromises their well-being or weirds them out. I use the "if I'd say it to them in front of others" method too. The only drawback is that it leads to nearly every conversation with them starting out with "Oh, yeah. I already read that on your blog." Argh.

The real funny thing is you never know what will bother people. My husband was fine with me alluding to fights we've had or sex we've had ... I'm not descriptive about either, but still. But then, I said he "knows all the words to 'Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,'" and he was ACTUALLY MAD because he only knows some of the words to "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk." Silly me.

As to the exploitation issue, I just don't get that. This is my love letter to my kid and my life with him, my chronicle of our adventures together. He loves it. He asks if I've written "any cool stories with me in them." And good point, Dana, about Dave Barry. Huge double standard. I'd never even thought about that.

Being a mom is damn funny, and damn inspiring. And sometimes it involves crying or heartbreak or laughing or moments of brilliance, or poop and boogers. And I write it. That's all there is to it, for me.

And my husband would like the Interwebs to know he only really knows the refrain. Just to set that straight.

Fri, 2009-01-16 16:09

Alice- I won't be able to post any pictures of them, their names or anything 'personal' about their history. I'll be able to say "We ate popcorn tonight and watched the Wizard of Oz," or "our foster son learned how to burp on command today after Barry worked on it with him for 2 hours," but nothing too revealing.

Fri, 2009-01-16 15:08

I don't tend to censor my blog with one big exception. The Crossdresser's Wife is already such an "Out There" sort of blog to begin with that I think communication is Way WAY more important than censoring myself. I don't go into graphic detail about all the aspects of my marriage but I don't hide anything either.

What's the one thing I DO hide? Our faces and actual names. I do this because my husband's not ready to come out to his employer yet and I respect his privacy about crossdressing. It WILL be harder, however, when we get pregnant and I want to join the momversation. But that's a worry for another day.

Fri, 2009-01-16 13:52

Oh boy. Good luck, TMW! Are there specific rules you have to follow--can you talk about the child(ren) at all?

Fri, 2009-01-16 13:22

I started my blog when my first daughter was born, because I was tired of questions like "Oh, so how is she? What is she doing? Do you have enough milk? Is everything ok with you?" - all my friends and relatives asked absolutely the same things and they called all the time!
So I registered a domain and said: "Ok, guys, now help yourself, please. You can ask me some other questions if you want to, AFTER you read our news".
So, from the very beginning I thought of my family members, who could read my blog. And I decided NEVER write anything about my relationships with my family members or friends. I only blog about my kids, and sometimes I write down some positive moments about their interaction with the others. I don't blog about anything that's going on in my family. I wrote that my daughter was on a funeral, but I didn't write a word, that it was my MIL, who died.
The only negative thing I blog about is my feelings - for example, when I decided to go to a therapy because I was going crazy after staying at home with my kids for 4 years...
Most of my friends have blogs on Livejournal, and when they write about their motherhood, they lock it (sorry, I don't know the right term) so that only their lj-friends have access to read it. I keep my stand-alone blog wich is visible to anyone, but do censor myself.
P.S.: And now I wrote a book about young mother, who has problems with her child's grandparents. And I allways can say: Oh, that's just fiction :)

Fri, 2009-01-16 13:11