On anonymity

I started this blog as an anonymous infertility blog. When you're discussing the details of your lady bits and visits with the, um, dildocam ... one's natural tendency is to keep things a bit hush-hush. Well, most folks feel that way, anyway. Some are braver than I am, putting their names and faces out for the world to see. Bravo for them! We need people -- real people, men and women, people with names and photos so you know that they're real -- speaking out about what IF is like. Otherwise, I think that it's too easy for the rest of the world to brush us off as a bunch of anonymous women whining about women things. It's increasingly clear that we won't get very far towards societal progress on any healthcare issue without the world hearing actual stories from actual people. To my sisters (and brothers) in IF who blog under your true identities, thank you! I hope that the people who read your writing treat you with the respect you deserve for taking such a huge personal risk. And may book deals flow in your direction!

I'm not one of those folks, alas, although I sometimes wish I could be. I blame my job for my lack of openness. I really don't mind the anonymous internetz knowing all the details of my IF journey, but I don't want my co-workers to know those kind of details unless I've specifically chosen to tell them. Which I mostly haven't. My tendency is to keep my work and my personal life as separate as possible. No co-workers as FB friends, no co-workers as close pals or drinking buddies (not that I've had drinking buddies in the past, oh, 10 years, but you get the idea). Part of this is because I'm in upper management, and I'm a lawyer and the combination of those things requires that I maintain a certain, er, persona that people will respect. I find that maintaining personal distance/mystery helps maintain that respect. But besides trying to maintain my image as "The Law" (as opposed to "that lawyer who has had all kinds of weird medical procedures involving her lady bits, oh and did you know she lost a pregnancy?"), I just like to have a space where everyone doesn't know my personal business. Work is that space for me.

As my blog has morphed from infertility to adoption to parenting, some things about my approach to blogging have changed. But the anonymity part hasn't. I never use real names, I hint around about cities, I don't name my employer. Sure, if someone really wanted to stalk me, they could probably figure out what's what, but it would take some real work. As time goes by, and as I become closer with some of my long-time bloggy friends, I have sent a few of you emails from one of my (gasp!!) real email account which contains (oh the horror!!) my real name. I can count those on one hand. Otherwise, I like to think that I'm as anonymous as the wind. (I know I'm not, but humor me here.) Unless you're (1) a close friend, (2) a relative, or (3) someone with way too much time on your hands and a bit of an obsessive streak, chances are you don't know my last name and you're not sure whether the first name that I use out here is real or not. Hmm ... is it?

I tried to explain that to my relatives when we had the Big Religion Blowout, but they weren't listening to any of it. I had posted about (gasp!) family strife online and as far as they were concerned, I might as well have paraded naked photos of them on national television. They felt that exposed. Nevermind that I never mentioned names or cities or states or any other identifying info. I had violated a Cardinal Rule of Privacy (where do they print these rules? are they available for public perusal?), and I should be tarred and feathered for the offense. End of story.

So imagine what they would have thought at this: A few months ago, I was approached by a parenting magazine.

"We'd like to have you write for us for a month," they said.

"Yay!" I said. "When do I start?"

"As soon as you send us a photo and your name and the name of your child," they replied.

Pause.

I explained to them the whole thing about this being an anonymous blog and that most infertility blogs are anonymous and that the infertility info is still in my blog and well, I just prefer not to have my name and photo out there ... at least not now. It kinda ruins the honesty level, ya know?

"Oh," they said. "Hm ... we'll get back to you."

Of course, I never heard from them again.

I mention this because I was recently contacted by another parenting magazine with a request to reprint excerpts from my blog. They didn't want my photo or my name or the name of my child. They just liked my writing. So nice of them! I'm honored. And sure enough, if you happen to read a certain adoption magazine this month, you'll see my edited blog post. No photo, no name.

Attention: first parenting magazine ... Anonymity doesn't kill a blog, nor would it have killed the articles I might have written for your publication. Good writing is good writing. And not everyone wants to be a Big Celebrity.

I'm just sayin'.

So then the other day, I see that the NYT has jumped on the ongoing furor about (gasp!gasp!gasp!) mommy bloggers, in a blog post with the screaming title "Protecting Your Child's Privacy". The writer of the post stirs the pot, and then asks the following questions:

At what point do parents lose their right to their children’s tales? When do things stop being something that happened to “me” and start being something that happened to “them,” and therefore not “mine” to tell?

The post was primarily about mommy bloggers as a general group (no consideration of the fact that these blogs might be a way to provide information on specific topics like adoption, IF, premature infants, etc), and the comments are a mixed bag. Some folks condemn us for writing about our children at all, some folks think it's okay, so long as you anonymize everyone or only tell stories that won't come back to bite your child in the backside when they're looking for a job 20 years later.

I can see all sides of the picture, and can only take a stance from my own personal experience. I've chosen to be anonymous, but I've also chosen to post pictures of my child. If I continue to do so, the anonymity of the blog will be significantly reduced as time goes by and more people out there IRL know him and his face. At some point, if I want to maintain the anonymity, I'll have to stop posting photos of Squeaker. Or, if I want to keep posting photos, I'll have to scrub my blog of the material that I want to keep anonymous. We're not there yet, but it's something out on the horizon that I think about from time to time. I honestly don't know how I'm going to handle it.

The question the NYT blogger raised is actually a really important question in adoption circles -- whether or not adoptive parents blog, there are parts of our children's stories that have absolutely nothing to do with us but everything to do with them -- they are our children's very personal stories, relating to their original families and their experiences with them prior to (or after) joining our families. These stories may not be ours to tell -- at all. Recognizing where that line is and how to deal with it raises all kinds of ethical and personal issues. (Heather? Perhaps a topic for the next Open Adoption Roundtable?)

So what do you think, Internetz? Where do you draw the privacy line with your blog, and why?

Comments

[Heather]

Congrats on the magazine feature! I knew sending them your blog link way back when would be a good thing. ;)

Roundtable topic duly noted.

[Rachel]

I'm glad that you're going to have your writing published in print!

A very well thought out post. I am terrified of either my family or (gasp!) my students finding my blog and I am pretty sure that I would take it down if I was sure someone I knew was reading it. I like to naively think that since I don't post photos no one would connect my blog with me, but since our situation is a bit unusual I'm sure that anyone who came across it by chance would easily recognize us. Which does make me wonder whether there is any rational basis to my fear of posting photos online (I have posted less than 10 of either me or my daughter in the past 1.5 years). I guess I do worry a little bit about my daughter's future googling skills (although I would like to collect some of my best posts into a book for her about our wait) and her ability to create her own identity as a teenager.

[Melissa Taylor]

I think about it from an identity thief perspective. If your kids' names are out there, ages, and other personal data, one day that information might be stolen! Just like I protect my personal information on FB, not giving my DOB, etc, I think we must be extra careful with our childrens' info.

Melissa
http://imaginationsoup.net

[luna]

I thought I commented on this before, but I guess it didn't go through.

You echo a lot of my feelings on this subject exactly. Such an excellent post.