I arrive at my folks' house every morning about 6:57 a.m. Too early to be very functional.
This morning my mom peered at me. "Are you doing much with your blink or your blog or whatever you call it?"
Oh shit.
"Ahhhhh...naw, Mom, I have slowed down a lot." I'm madly scrambling. The blog she has seen is my food blog, which I have updated about 3 times in the past year.
"Oh, because your sister said that you write a lot about your dog," she said.
"Well, yeah...of course" I said lamely.
"I don't even know how to get there," she said.
"It has a URL like every other web page," I said vaguely.
"Well," said mom. "If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to."
"Hey, did you see the sunrise? Pink and purple!" I said.
I am 45 years old. OLD. If I were any kind of mature, I would tell my parents about my blog and let them deal with it. But I caaaaaan't.
My mom is just such a naive person. She is almost naive by sheer force of will. She stays horrified and appalled by the modern world with a kind of steely determination. She's the kind of person who doesn't watch movies because there is too much swearing in them.
I need my blog privacy. I need my little chunk of the world where I can spew to random strangers and block my family out. How does that make sense? I guess it makes my life easier, because my readers either tell me what they think or they go away, but they rarely ask me to explain every little thing. And my mom, especially, would want me to explain Every Little Thing. And she would worry about me and my sanity. I just don't want the weight of that caring on me. I know I am sane for the most part. I just can't steel myself for the onslaught that exposing my blog to my mom would bring.
Do any of you hide your blogs? If so, why? Tell me I am not an ogre for wanting to keep this from the people who love me most.
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I have a secret blog where I write about the wacky exploits of my girlfriend. Boy, is she a hoot! And my vast readership, they seem to agree: She is one stone-cold crazy mama-jamma!
hehe@Mr Stapler. :P
I don't hide mine. Well, I don't announce it to the folks I work with because it could end up bad if I spout off about them and they read it.
My mom knows where mine is and has decided to try her hand at it. I really have to get in and make her a pretty blog template. She's using the oogly parchment paper one. Bleh.
My sister has recently discovered mine (all on her own!) so now I watch what I say a little more. I don't hide it though.
I hide certain posts from my Mom. She doesn't use a computer anyways but she wants to see my posts.
The rest of my family checks it occasionally so I have to edit what I say at times. Which sucks..
My sister and best friend know but I dont broadcast to anyone else. I am not keeping it secret, I just dont want to lose my venue for venting, yet.
Everyone in my family and in-law family already knows that I am a raving lunatic, so I don't hide my blog for them. Various family members have told me bluntly that some of the posts are "too much" for them, and they skip them. My mom has told me this repeatedly. My dad only mentions the posts he likes.
If I had a shred of common sense (decency?), I would not have told my family about my blog. But sadly, as I will do almost anything for readers, I felt compelled to. There is absolutely nothing wrong with hiding it, though.
No one who knows me knows about my blog. It is a secret even from my husband. (Although i'll bet he suspects because he isn't an idiot.)
This leaves me free to write what i like.
My family, especially my mother, would be very hurt if they did read my blog. But i couldn't write much if i had to cater to their feelings.
It's a dilemna.
OH! I wish I hadn't told my family. I'm not even altogether sure if my parenst read what I write but just the thought of the possibility keeps me away from a lot of topics I'd like to write about...I'll get over it one of these days, hopefully.
Ha - Mr. Stapler cracked me up. Anyway - when I first started blogging, I told everyone about it - even my parents. Then one day my mom made a comment to me about how I had "all this time to write a bunch of CRAP to a bunch of STRANGERS" and I decided I needed to close off that door I'd opened to her. I was offended (reading it literally, that she said my writing was crap) and also irritated that she would judge whether blogging was a "good" use of my time. So, I ran. I moved all my posts over from my old blog to a temporary wordpress site and left one post on the old blog asking anyone interested to email me and I'd send them the new address. When my mom asked what happened, I told her, and told her that I'd decided it wasn't a good idea to open myself up to her unnecessary criticism like that. And that was it. (Incidentally, the old blog was at http://mymentalbuffet.blogspot.com. Not sure why I thought I'd share that, though.)
Over Christmas, she apparently asked my sister if I had given HER my new address.
I don't hide my blog per se, but I don't go around handing out flyers with my url to those who I wouldn't want to read.
I found out several months ago that my mother in law has been secretly reading and that's fine, but I'm not going to censor myself. If she reads something she doesn't like and wants to approach me about it, then fine.
I don't think it's wrong to want a space to yourself, but don't underestimate your mom either she may be craftier than you think. If my 62 year old mil can find my blog anyone can.
I haven't told my parents about it, but I haven't exactly hidden it either. I did tell all my friends though. Sometimes I wish that I hadn't. It would be good to vent some of the stuff that builds up without worrying about hurting someone's feelings.
I put my blog on instant messanger profile... and my brother saw it. And gave the url (without talking to me) to my parents. And my in-laws.
Not that I might have talked about all sorts of crazy things that they would have disapproved of, but now we'll never know, will we?
Also.
I can't get away from the Pink Shoe themed gifts. It's insanity.
I'm not sure anyone in my family even knows what a blog is (is that something on the interweb?) so it hasn't really come up with them. I've only told a couple of real-life friends, though I guess I wouldn't really care if more knew.
I hide my blog, except I think it may've been found out... I own up to the fact that I write a blog though, so I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to find. I may have to start editing it, I rather like the pseudo-anonymity.
Several friends read my blog, but I haven't told my family. Something tells me my mother would be unimpressed by my descriptions of farts and liberal usage of curse words. If they find it, so be it, but I'm not steering them anywhere close.
My parents are dead, so those are two people I can't piss off. Although I'm sure my mom must be fuming at times even now, wherever she is, that I'm washing dirty linen in public. My nieces read my blog occasionally. My sister, never. If there's anyone who I'm likely to write about that I wouldn't want to read it, it is she. But--mostly I take a fuck-off approach. Actually, I consider it therapeutically beneficial to write stuff that makes me squirm--and I'm a shrink!!!!
I don't have a blog, but I do write for folks and I once wrote an article about a chat I had with one of my sisters. She's a neocon and I shone an unforgiving light on her. Several hundred thousand people read that article, but my sister wasn't among them. We all need private space and especially private public space. Of course, I didn't use her name.
I was so desperate for readers when I first started the blog, so I told my family, friends and co-workers all about it. Sadly, they provide some of the best material, so now I have to save all of the "my co-worker won't stop eating with his mouth open" stories for some super-secret blog I will write in the future. I'm glad I told my mom, because now she doens't worry about me not calling so much, and she leaves some pretty hilarously disturbing comments.
I never told my parents about mine, but I have told other family and now wonder if by trickle effect they may have found out. I guess one day when I write some scathing remark about my mother's latest rude comment to me and I get a tearful screaming call from her I'll find out for sure.
I tell my mom EVERYTHING, which often results in her covering her ears and rocking back and forth. She knows about my blog, but I don't think she reads it regularly. My boyfriend knows about my blog, and I have no idea if he reads it - and don't care.
It's my friends that I don't tell about my blog. I have few friends, and would hate to upset the ones I do have, but I know that at some point I will say something upsetting about one of them.
I don't link directly to "jessica" from any of my other blogs or my homepage, but if you look at the source code on the homepage there's a note about the jessica blog. I figure if you are that clever/inquisitive, you might enjoy the insanity at my personal blog.
I guard the secret of my blog like the holy grail. No one, except my husband and my sister, knows about it. And often I wish my sister didn't have a clue I wrote a blog. You need to censor too much if too many people know and that's no fun.
Look! Halley's comet!
YES YES YES, I am so with you, down to the naivete of the mother thing. I love my mom to death but I swear she lives in this little bubble of know-nothingness, as in she's never heard of stuff like reality TV and girls gone wild-not that it's worthwhile to know about that stuff but you see where I'm going with this.
And she does NOT know about my blog nor do I ever plan on telling her.
Fist to the chest, sistah.
Touche, Mr Stapler.
Noelle - THAT is what my true employee confessions blog is for. Email confessions to snackishblogATyahooDOTcom. I can either put your name on or leave it off.
I don't hide my blog, per say....but I guess you'd say I "lie by omission". I agree. I just feel like I need a "safe space".
Mine isn't hidden. Well, I hide it from anyone I work with, and one side of my family, but that's it.
My mom knows about it, but she's never asked for the url. Which is fine by me - she'll never find it otherwise, because she's not very net savvy.
Nobody knows I have a blog except my husband and he never reads it. I like it that way.
:)
I do and I don't. Certain people in my life know about it and others don't. I've always tried to not post anything that I wouldn't want anyone I love reading, so I'm not so much concerned about say, my cousin reading it and finding out I think she needs to lose twenty pounds and gain a major attitude adjustment. But I don't broadcast to everyone that I have a blog.
There is one person in my (extended) family who reads and comments on my blog on a regular basis. My father knows I have a blog and he even went so far as to ask for the URL once, but I keep forgetting to give it to him. Dang. Several of my friends read it as well.
And I'm comfortable with that. I know it's on the internet and that anyone could find it. And if that happens, well, I'll deal with it. But I do understand the need for privacy. For your own space.
Mr.Stapler, I'm DYING to read the mysterious blog of which you speak. hehee.
And Suebob? Our mothers must be long lost sisters! Only mine likes to lecture me. She's convinced that a child predator is going to read my blog and find a way to hunt us down... Gah!
This is your space and you should cherish it. It takes a while to build a blog that is both successful and secure - it is your diary that you are inviting us into, after all. I think you should keep it a secret from them as long as you want. You need it.
I'm sure you know by now that my blog is a secret from almost all my real life peeps. Basically, MommaK put it quite nicely so "Yeah! What she said!"
I totally wish I had kept my blog hidden instead of being so damn desperate for readers that I told approximately 223 cousins, friends, relatives, acquaintances and of course my mom. Who I sometimes wish wasn't a nice internet-savvy woman, but more of a "dang newfangled interweb thingy" woman.
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