Wednesday 23 April 2014

Blogging Anonymously....for now.

Recently I read a blog post by @amandaniescior on Niescior's Notes. It was about regretting going public with your blog.

It was an interesting read for me because this was something I thought about a lot when I first started Kid And Capers.

Very early on I decided not to "go public" with mine and to stay relatively anonymous. 
My reasons for this? I wanted my blog to be somewhere that I could talk about about anything, but more specifically, my experiences as a single mother. I wanted somewhere to chart my journey. A place where I could return to reminisce.

It's not necessarily something I want my son to read when he's older. Not because I will be saying anything awful! It's just my personal thoughts/feelings and I don't necessarily think that O needs to read those when he's older. He certainly doesn't need to read about his mum thinking about "dating" again. :-) Nor does he need to read that his mum used to worry in the very early days that people would judge her for being a single parent.

There are things I will need to tell him when he's older but I want us to sit down and talk about it all openly. I don't want him to possibly read it all first on here and then draw his own conclusions.
For the same reason I didn't want family and friends to read my blog. I just wanted to be able to talk (or vent!) without judgement...my own wee personal space.

That said, I've got to know some great people through Twitter and blogging. Those people know me, they know my back story. It's not that I don't want people to get to know me (quite the opposite in fact!) I just want to have a wee bit of control over people in my life reading my thoughts. 

I understand that may all sound contradictory - I'm happy for strangers to read whatever I write but I don't want family and friends to. I guess its because if readers or strangers want to judge me, that's ok. I'm indifferent to it.

Maybe one day I'll feel differently....

Did you "go public" with your blog?
Did you ever consider not going public, for what reason(s)?

2 comments:

  1. It's difficult isn't it? A few people know about my website, but only really my parents and my closest friend. I told them really because I wanted some feedback back when I barely had 1 visitor a day. Now, however, I do keep it fairly hushed and I really enjoy the interactions I have with fellow bloggers on Twitter. I like having ownership of my blog and knowing that it's not just another Facebook profile!xx

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  2. When I first started blogging I was anonymous however a couple of weeks in I 'revealed' myself as it was too much work. I fear that people I know will find out, people in my town can be quite cruel so I keep it well hidden - my mum knows though found out a few months in. Now I have to be careful with what I write, which is a shame as would love to write more but some things mums just shouldn't know!! I agree though, I don't mind being judged by others just not people I know - for now I am happy having this place of my own and want to keep it this way for as long as possible :) I want to enjoy blogging not worry about who is reading! xxxx

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