Largely it depends what they blog about. Are they discussing my present self, or me when I was a child? As it happens, my parents are professors and occasionally mention me in their classes, so I’ve grappled with this question before. They usually tell tales of the stunts my brother and I pulled when we were younger. Sometimes these stories even pertain to the class material. For example, when I was eight and my brother Benjamin was eleven, my parents got a miniature “safe” to guard the Halloween candy. The small box was complete with a set of buttons to open the door. Ben and I tried various methods to crack the code. He hid a camera in the room to try and capture the code, but it was blocked by angles every time. Eventually I realized that each button had its own tone, and I listened to the code input until I figured out what it was. It turns out there is an actual criminal who used the same method, which now causes all buttons to have the same tone when pressed.
Those stories don’t bother me; they happened a long time ago, and I (mostly) trust my parents not to say anything embarrassing about me. When something new happens that my parents want to share with their class -- perhaps Ben or I made a noteworthy snarky comment -- they check with us to make sure that we’re ok with it, which I appreciate. A system of checks and balances, no?
Nonetheless, blogging is something different. A class of students may soon forget the tale they heard, but a blog is far more permanent. Even if my parents took down a post or edited it, someone could already have read it and screen-shotted it. To be fair, what my parents would post on that blog would probably be innocuous, but I’d still rather not have my baby photos posted on the internet -- those would be among the first things, I’m sure. “It’s only our profile picture, Miriam! I didn’t post any other pictures. Please, this is such a great photo of you!!” “This was taken right after I was born it is not a good photo!” …..Maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but similar things have happened.
It also bugs me a little that my mom would probably still write about me as though I were a little kid. The other day she was talking to a stranger and referred to me as “her little girl” – read 5 years old – and my brother had to mention I was sixteen. I understand that she’s just being sentimental, but people have mistaken me for younger then I am for a long time. It wasn’t until this year really that I looked my age. For example, when I was twelve people thought I was eight. It put everyone off a little bit to see someone who looks eight use “parsimonious” as an adjective, I am told. It hurt when everywhere I went people asked me if I was old enough to do this or that, or if I really belonged in this class, and wouldn’t I like to check out a children’s book instead of Pancho Villa: A Biography. Thus it especially annoys me to still be referred to as a young child. But overall, as long as I could edit what my parents posted beforehand, I’d be all right with a blog.
