4 Things You Should NOT Share On Your Adoption Blog
Blogging on an adoption blog can be a very rewarding experience. The adoption world is an unusual weaving of beauty and grief. In being authentic to the experience, you want to be honest and transparent on your adoption blog, but is there a boundary between writing a genuine piece and over sharing information? Before you press the publish button, you might want to ask yourself a few questions.
1. Unnecessary Information
The first question to ask is, “Is this wise use of the internet?” There are some general rules about what is safe to post. Full names, addresses, and birthdates, to name a few, make us vulnerable in the internet world. We have great, innocent intent in our blog posts, but not everyone has pure motives behind reading it.
On my blog, I stick with nicknames. For one, I generally want to protect my family’s identities from people looking to take advantage of that kind of information. Secondly, I want to protect my children from someone being able to type their names into a search and pull up any and all details I include on my blog. Generally, I try to keep my blog free of any information my children will want to keep private in the future, but I feel like I never know what kind of information a possible future bully would try to obtain.
2. A Word About Pictures
In speaking of impure motives, you may also want to avoid posting pictures of your child(ren). There is a split debate on this subject. Some say it is fine to do as long as the pictures show no nudity, others say no picture is safe. I can tell you I do post pictures of my children, but only those in which they are fully clothed. You will have to decide for yourself what you feel is safe for your family.
3. Embarrassing Your Kids
Another question I ask myself is, “Does this pass the 13-year-old litmus test?” That might seem like a strange question, but majority of my posts are related to my children. At some point they will be teenagers and the content I am publishing will still be out on the web. Will they be embarrassed by what I wrote? Will my post make them susceptible? What might seem funny or relevant in the moment may have lasting psychological implications.
4. Insulting Anyone In The Adoption Triad
Lastly, posting anything that would cast a poor light on other members of the triad is not a good idea. Generally, it is a good idea to avoid blogging anything that would be derogatory to someone, but the triad is especially sacred. Anything we say about someone in the triad will impact the third member. As an adoptive parent, are you saying something negative about a birth parent or vice versa? The adoptee then has belittling information about one of their parents out there. We always need to take into consideration what we are saying and how it will impact the others.
Writing out your thoughts within the adoption world can be quite a therapeutic task. Getting adoption friendly education out there gives us a deep sense of accomplishment. Connecting with others in the adoption world brings the relief of knowing we are not alone on this journey. In all of this good, there is one thing that can destroy it–pressing publish on a post that should not be for the world to see. Be careful what you write and a bounty of good will come out of your words.
