Parenting Teens: Teens That Blog
Tuesday, November 18, 2008 at 12:00AM
There is a building debate in the mom blog world about if or not mom bloggers should be posting about their teens. The debate seems to focus on the early adapter moms who started blogging before their kids could read and now the kids are objecting to what they are reading being written about them.
Since I have only been blogging for about 6 months I have no dog in that fight. If I didn’t write about my kids, I would have nothing to write about. My kids get to complain about what I write to their friends whose moms don’t blog. They get sympathy; I have an unending supply of blog post material and a handy parental warning. I even heard my husband say to one of the kids “Watch it or you are going to become a blog post!”
Posting about my teens is no problem. My teens posting about me, big problem. I have a child who blogs in the old fashion sense of the word. She has an online diary read by her friends, their mothers and it seems a good half the world’s population of teens.
My daughter is a brilliant writer. Brilliance is in her genes. She is insightful, quirky and edgy. She is good with words. She can take an ordinary situation, give it a twist and delight her readers. She could be a G-rated Daily Show writer and supply her own video for each segment.
The problem is I usually only appear in her blog when she is mad at me. The extensive vocabulary she possesses get put to impressive use in letting the world know what an mean mother this child has. Who knew a teen could be so expressive with a G rated vocabulary. You would never know from reading her blog she has a father both active and interested in her life. There are siblings that appear when she is mad at them or they have done something nice for her. No other family member has reached my Attila the Mom Status.
I don’t like it.
I threatened censorship with a previous blog she had but have decided against that route with this one. Unless she starts building bombs in the basement or running numbers, than all freedom of expression becomes void.
At least her latest blog isn’t titled “Mommy Dearest”.