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Permalink Reply by Kim Machir on December 8, 2009 at 7:12am

I have used my children's real names in my blog... and then read a friend's and she was using initials. Until that moment it hadn't occurred to me that I might be being careless about my children's safety.

I'm a worrier mom; after the Twin Towers fell, I was nearly crippled with anxiety anytime I went anywhere, especially with my children. I took them to the McDonald's near my home in Northern Indiana, and thought, "McDonald's is SO quintessentially American; this is a terrorist target!!" I watched every person who entered to see if I could detect any visible sign of terrorist intentions, like I would know what to look for, and then I was ashamed for questioning the motives of other people who were just getting a fry fix. I heard that children had been lured away by predators who read their names on their backpacks, so I tried labeling my children's packs with only initials, then hid their names in the tiniest print a colored permanent marker could make legibly, in a partly covered place and in a slightly darker shade than the fabric. We told our children to pick secret passwords we could use when sending a friend to pick them up so they wouldn't leave with someone we hadn't actually sent. (This didn't work, because our kids changed their passwords constantly and we couldn't keep up, and then the school couldn't reach me and had my friend come get my son. She didn't have the password but he never asked, just smiled and went with her.)

Like you, no one is reading my blog, so I am pretty sure my kids are safe. But now every time I write and use one of their names, I wonder if I have just painted it in big bold print across his backpack.

Permalink Reply by Amy Yelin on December 8, 2009 at 8:11pm

Kim,
Thanks for responding! You sound like my husband - he is much more of a worrier about these types of things and he is the one who got upset with me this morning because he saw I was using real names. Perhaps I'm too lax about it, but I just don't really see the harm. His theory is the whole internet predator thing......but I don't really buy it.
Anyway, I suppose it's not a big deal to switch to fake names. Ernie and Bert might work.

Kim Machir said:

I have used my children's real names in my blog... and then read a friend's and she was using initials. Until that moment it hadn't occurred to me that I might be being careless about my children's safety.

I'm a worrier mom; after the Twin Towers fell, I was nearly crippled with anxiety anytime I went anywhere, especially with my children. I took them to the McDonald's near my home in Northern Indiana, and thought, "McDonald's is SO quintessentially American; this is a terrorist target!!" I watched every person who entered to see if I could detect any visible sign of terrorist intentions, like I would know what to look for, and then I was ashamed for questioning the motives of other people who were just getting a fry fix. I heard that children had been lured away by predators who read their names on their backpacks, so I tried labeling my children's packs with only initials, then hid their names in the tiniest print a colored permanent marker could make legibly, in a partly covered place and in a slightly darker shade than the fabric. We told our children to pick secret passwords we could use when sending a friend to pick them up so they wouldn't leave with someone we hadn't actually sent. (This didn't work, because our kids changed their passwords constantly and we couldn't keep up, and then the school couldn't reach me and had my friend come get my son. She didn't have the password but he never asked, just smiled and went with her.)

Like you, no one is reading my blog, so I am pretty sure my kids are safe. But now every time I write and use one of their names, I wonder if I have just painted it in big bold print across his backpack.