There's always the "X"

Two posts I came across in the last two days have compelled me to write this post. One of them is thought provoking yet very irritating for the "better than thou" attitude it projects. The second one is the vile work of a coward and provokes outrage. The first post targets mommy bloggers and their "boring" blogs while the second one targets one of my favorite bloggers for her "failure" to maintain her kids' privacy. The second post goes too far - it also targets the innocent kids with its venom.

"Privacy" is the blue-eyed baby of the politically correct fanatics. A lot of hue and cry has been made about it. In some contexts, privacy is necessary. Like, for medical records and such. In some, optional. To talk about babies' and children's right to privacy in the context of their parents' blogs about them is ridiculous, in my opinion. Mine is not a mommy blog. It was never intended to be. But lately I have been recording more and more stuff about my daughters (and my family). My reasons are my own and I don't feel the need to cite them to justify my blogging habits. I started out with a lot of paranoia. I didn't post pictures of myself or my family, I wrote under a pseudonym, gave fictitious names to my husband and my daughters and never wrote about my work. I did this because I wasn't sure if I would ever write about my strained relations with my ILs or my work. If I decided to do so, I didn't want anyone to be able to Google my name and stumble upon those posts by mistake. I still don't post pictures of myself or my husband. I still don't write about my work. I still write under an assumed name. But I have started posting pictures of my daughters. I sometimes even contemplate going public with my name. I figure I am not going to post anything controversial about these two topics (ILs and work) so where is the need for secrecy? Besides, going public will have an added advantage that I can hand out my blog's URL to friends and family and they can keep abreast of whatever is going on in our lives.

Sowmya, author of the first blog, raises a lot of points in her post about why parents decide to maintain public blogs about their children and why it isn't such a good idea. She is sick and tired of reading about home remedies to cure eczema and constipation. She thinks parent bloggers are violating their children's rights to privacy by posting their pictures and writing about them. She wonders if these parents do so in hopes of getting their kids' mugs on a magazine's cover. In short, she doesn't understand why mommy bloggers (I wonder why she doesn't mention daddy bloggers - there ARE quite a few around) maintain these blogs. She contends that mommy bloggers have perhaps forgotten what the word "blog" means. [I wonder if she ever looked the word up in a dictionary] She wants every mommy blogger to go private. To stop blogging about their kids and just maintain a private journal for friends and family. She wants a legislature banning all parents from posting their children's pictures online. [I wonder why she targets only bloggers? Why not also rant about people who post their kids' videos on YouTube? YouTube is also very much public, open to all sorts of demented minds like she points out for the blogs]

The first question that comes to my mind is - "Does she have kids of her own"? From her blog I can't figure that out but one or two posts that I glanced through gave me an idea that probably she does. But I am not sure. Also some of the commenters have left comments that made me think "You wouldn't be so rigid in your opinions if you were a parent yourself". Because privacy isn't just achieved by not posting pictures. Pictures are the most trivial part of it. If you don't have any names or any other details to associate with the picture, the picture is nothing but a nameless face. Granted, any pedophile can look at a picture of a kid and jerk off, but he/she can do that to any picture anyway. Going by this argument, one should not allow kids to act in any commercials or pose for any advertisements. No kids should be allowed to act in movies and television serials either. You understand where this could lead to? Anyway. The thing that raised my hackles was the tone of the post - very condescending, very "holier than thou" kind, very judgmental. I may or may not agree with parents who post their kids' pictures online or write about their private lives, but I do understand one thing very clearly. They are doing so on their OWN blogs, they don't twist my arm to come read their blogs and if I accidentally stumble across their blogs and don't like what I read, I can always click on the "X" in the top right corner and end my misery right there. Don't even get me started on the unborn babies' rights to privacy that is mentioned in the post. There IS something as pushing things too far. I did like some other posts of hers but this post and the comments left by some commenters on this post have irritated me beyond words and left a bad taste in my mouth.

The second post, by far the vilest I have ever come across, made my blood boil. This blogger has written some similar posts about other bloggers and to me it seemed like he/she targets bloggers who are "successful" or well known. Could this be a case of the green-eyed monster? Whatever be the reasoning behind these posts, I simply cannot fathom how someone can be so immature? And spiteful. To write such derogatory and hurtful posts about other people - what kind of low-life-scumness does that require one to have?

I have written about this before - about understanding that people's blogs are their own, and if you don't like what they write about, just move on. Don't spit your venom criticizing other people just because they don't think like you or don't share your opinions. Disagree, but politely. Be civil. If you consider yourselves educated (which is obvious from the superior tone of these two blog authors' posts), behave like an educated person.

What do you think? I'd love to know.

Updated to add: Poppins' Mom has brought up another interesting, and very valid, argument. Most children are molested by immediate family members or close friends of the family. Doesn't that defeat the argument that all mommy-bloggers should take their content to a private space and invite only family and friends to view/read it FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR CHILDREN"S SAFETY AND PRIVACY?

Further update: On request of some fellow bloggers, I am removing the link to the posts. I didn't want to, but I have to respect this request as it is not only me whose identity has been revealed. I don't care about it personally because I don't write anything scandulous (yet) anyway but I do care about the others. I have to say one thing though - I could never imagine that some minds could hold so much hatred and venom.

Last Update, I promise!: A few other bloggers have posted their thoughts on this issue. The one that I liked the best is here.