Privacy, Internet & The Kids. Oh My!

Yesterday I posted about my eldest son. Deeply personal. Cathartic. Almost necessary. The words wrote themselves. After hitting “Publish” I told my husband about the latest LiquidBetsy.

And he gasped.

You see, I married a technologist. With a certain expertise in online security. As his wife, I’ve been completely scared straight on identity theft, online stalking, and cyber-pedophilia to name a few.

So, with respect to my children, I normally don’t:

• Post their real names. Hence, the twins have been dubbed “The Toaster”  & “Mr. Man,” and their younger sibling is  ”Baby Lug”- together I often refer to them as “The Wild Bunch.” But never by their Christian names.
• Make references about my home town or activities done around there.
• Mentioning my children on places like Twitter, or and I hardly ever make them the focus of posts.
• Use my married name, I go by my maiden name for business.
• Mix my social media and my family. I have a definite separation of Church and State for things for business (LinkedIn, Twitter, Friendfeed) and straight-up personal (Facebook), the latter where pictures of myself, my family are posted or can be posted by other members of the family, friends and past cohorts.

As my readers may have guessed I’m a pretty much an open-book. I don’t have the patience for being guarded (or the self-discipline really) but there are boundaries. My family is one of them. I tread cautiously, and although yesterday’s post followed the above guidelines for the most part, truth be told I was on the fence whether to post it.

Ethically speaking, was it the right thing to do? Or am I exposing his life, his personal private experiences for my benefit?

What my wise husband (really the man is my touchstone of restraint) pointed out that Mr. Man’s condition was private. Mr. Man’s private. And now that it was posted, tweeted and Facebook’d it was out there for all to double-click on. Even after I offered to delete it I was informed, “On the Internet Hon, there are no do-overs.”

Oh crap.

I re-read the piece. I agonized over what I did. Eventually I stood by the post. I celebrated my son’s amazing spirit , the resiliency of a child and further exposed the imperfect existence of being a parent. I felt like it focused less on his physical condition than exposing his metaphysical. I could live with that.

But of course dear readers, it made me ponder the delimma. What rights do a child have to privacy on the Internet? I am no lawyer. Nor profess to be in anyway knowledgeable about the law outside of a few classes on business law I survived in B-School and a few current experiences and best friends that practice. Which essentially means I know nothing. But I always thought children under the age of 18 were pretty much at the mercy of their parent’ss socio-political-economic bent as long as physically they were in no danger. Traipsing around Timbuktu? Sailing the Seven Seas? Home-schooled? Vegan dinners? Subjected to a commune? Catholic school? An Osmond? All fair game.

But are we but a few years away from a lawsuit in which a parent’s Internet post (“Oh… Baby Bobby naked on the bear rug!”) ruins little Bobby’s life? People do stupid things. On the Internet they last forever. So where Mom’s once whipped out humiliation pictures previously, she now posts them on Facebook. Or Gawd forbid Mom does a blog.

What is a child’s right to privacy on the Internet?

What should it be?

P.S. My husband emailed me later today. BTW he loved the post. Meant the world to me.

3 Responses to “Privacy, Internet & The Kids. Oh My!”

1. Daisy says:

   August 26, 2009 at 11:04 AM

   This certainly got me thinking. You’re right. There is a fine line here. Like you, it is my rule to never mention my children’s names on twitter and I keep a pretty limited profile as well. Thanks for the self check. Your son is a brave boy!
2. Buzz-kill? What’s the Buzz on Google Buzz? Let’s ask… - The Liquid Betsy says:

   April 14, 2010 at 10:31 AM

   [...] me also say that I have issues with  online privacy, especially with social media. I like separation between church and state in SM- for example, I keep my Facebook account for [...]
3. A Social Network for Kids? Seriously? - The Liquid Betsy says:

   May 26, 2010 at 10:16 PM

   [...] know I’m more conservative than most when it comes online privacy, especially with my children, but for GODSAKES, this venture is so wrong on so very many levels. At best they are exploiting kids [...]