Personal or public personas… for your kids?
After reading BayDad Zeigen’s post “The Web 2.0 dilemma: Public vs. personal personas” I thought I’d pose this question to the other Dads out there:
What do you do about your children? I’ve certainly met other dads that say things like: “It’s okay if you put that picture of my kid on the Internet, just don’t use my name or his name.” I also know there are other BayDads and BayMoms that use pseudonyms for their kids.
You may have noticed that just after starting BayDad, I changed all references to my son’s real name to things like “Mr. Busy” or “Mr. B.” It’s a nickname that I came up with after having him in backup daycare for a week. They used to always circle the adjective “Busy” to describe how he was behaving that day. So, now he’s Mr. Busy.
I’m actually not that privacy-minded, and I think that only my friends and family will ever read this, and I don’t think its really huge deal if you know his real name.
But, the argument can be made that an archive of this page will exist on some other server forever, and that he may not want his name associated with these posts. He may grow up to be a politician or big executive. What do you think McCain or Obama would think if they had well-publicized baby photos and essays by their parents available on the Internet?
I think the next decades are going to be a brave and interesting time. College kids are sharing their entire lives and real names on Facebook. Whats going to happen when these kids are the power-executives and politicians of tomorrow? How much dirt will we be able to find on Google about the presidential elections in 2048?
Do you feel like you have an obligation to keep your kids’ anonymity on the Internet? Why or why not?
