Baby Waldow Is Now Private.

Hey DJ,

I wasn't following your daughter's twitter or blog but I do follow you. I completely understand where you are coming from.

And I have a Privacy plugin for you. It's called Memberwing and it's actually easy to use. It's also free. I made a blog for my mom to keep our family updated last year. She travels internationally and is concerned about someone following her blog, finding out where she is traveling and robbing/kidnapping/etc/etc her. You can see her blog at http://wheresm.com/ to see how Memberwing functions.

Let me know if you need any help with it.

Just a note to suggest that you make a Facebook account for family and friends that you know really very well to share photos. I did that with my family and can now share things with them alone, it's a very small profile.

To make her blog private use this, but be very careful setting it up. Follow the instructions to the letter. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/absolute-pr...

Alternatively you could take the blog off self-hosted and put it on Wordpress.com which allows you to control who sees it. With self-hosted that's not an option.

Each child should be able to make their own decision when the time comes, given how incredibly social you are, I'm betting she'll be one heck of a content creator. :)

Well..... actually I did mention the "peril" of posting so much on line.... and not just about Eva, but I couched it in the "Democratization of Information: Power, Peril & Promise" debate. I can be a bit preachy. Thoughtful and wise decision!
Your mom.xxxxx

I'm with you hear, mate.

I'm as open as they come on social, but that's my choice. My child doesn't have that. And while I'm a proud parent, I'm also (like you and every other parent) a protective one.

I'll let him make the decision when he's older. :)

Hey Dj--
I'm a twitter follower and I've been reading your blog, just never have commented.

As someone who is very open with people online, and also people in real life, I know how hard the struggle is to keep some things private, while sharing others. While I have enjoyed the updates from Baby Waldow, I completely respect the decision that you and K have made to make her accounts more private. Thank you for "sharing" her with us for as long as you have. She is a doll!

I agree with some of the previous comments- it is sad that we have to "factor in" the sickos into all of the decisions that we make in life. There have been some great suggestions given here, regarding FB lists and privacy controls there.

You seem to be at total peace about this decision, and I think the bold statement in your post is the reasoning behind that... it isn't about you. I also love the Joe Rogan quote... I've never heard that one before, but I will definitely use it in the future!

New babies are so exciting (I have a one month old nephew) and it is easy to get caught up in all of the excitement and "over-share." Continue to focus on being the great dad that you are! Maybe baby Eva will grow up to be as social as you... :)

Total agreement. Give your child privacy until they're old enough and well informed enough to make that decision for themselves. They can choose life as little or as public as they want.

And make sure you have a good backup system. You may stop posting publicly, but still will be making media for actual friends and family. Consider buying a couple of cheap backup drives or a stack of DVD-Rs and doing monthly photo and movie archives. You have friends on the other coast; ask them to receive monthly DVDs in the mail for archiving in a lockbox in case something bad happens to your data.

D....J.... I'm lucky to be FB-friends with you because I live like 2,000 miles away from you and don't see your family often and I neeeeddd to see what you're up to! I love seeing pictures of my new cousin (honestly, Eva is WAY cuter than some of the babies that girls MY age have had lately). Like your Twitter account, you probably FB-friended people you've met casually, right? You could set up limited profile or manipulate your privacy settings but putting people on certain lists. I keep literally every information on my profile "Friends Only," except for my basic stats and education/work history. My networks can't see my photos. The world can't find me on Facebook through searches on its server and Google.

Also, the other thing is... why the twitter account? It honestly boggles my mind when parents decide to chronicle every single day of their child's live through endless e-mails/news, photography, and videos. Babies do grow quickly but not *that* fast. You should spend more time with your daughter and enjoy every minute than to take away a few minutes (or 20!) just to chronicle what she did that day.

I hear ya, it's a tough one. I like Facebook's policy better where someone has to "ask" to follow you and where you can set your privacy settings, not that it helps much as I discovered last week when they posted everyone's phone numbers without so much as a Mother May I.

On Twitter, I pick up questionable people every day so I go through every week or so and block, block, block. A lot of people have told me this is "tacky", but I don't especially care. My Twitter account is for MY use and entertainment, not a venue for a bunch of creepy people to sell me anything they want.

So if this is the decision you feel comfortable with, more power to ya! Personally, I don't think I'm interesting enough to stalk so mine will remain public (with a lot of blocks!).

Dj,

Most of us that have a "public" internet presence have good judgment inn regards to what to publish on our blogs, twitter accounts and facebook pages. We live and breathe internet and we are constantly monitoring what is being said about us and we even have action plans to tackle negative sentiment about our personal brands.
As a parent myself, I very much understand the importance on keeping my children private and to my family and close friends. I even have a strict privacy policy on my facebook to maintain my family pictures amongst my family and close friends, we manage lists and we give access to the pictures we want to give access to. I totally support your decision to maintain baby Waldow private to you and K. Nobody can refutes your right for privacy and, if someone got offended because of that, then he/she didn't deserve to be part of that brief moment when you open your life to strangers.
The vast majority of people have good faith but there are always a few that have other intentions with other's people lives and they do not have any respect for children or adults, that's when your parent instincts kick in and you protect your family.

And that's what you just did! Enjoy your baby, she is your most precious treasure now!

DJ,

Kudos! I'm so glad that you made this decision. It's sad that we live in a world where privacy is required for protection, but we do. I've watched (and participated) in Baby Eva's online presence with a combination of "she's so cute" and prayers that no sickos find her.

I've aggressively kept my children offline because of something a friend at Atlanta Police Department said when my son was an infant. He said, "not everyone on the Internet is a pedophile, but every pedophile is on the Internet."

Blessings to you and your family. Thank you for sharing your joy.

Debra

Hmmm.

I respect your decision 100%. Especially because I can remember as a young lass being quite upset with mom for telling everyone she knew things I considered "private" as a 7 year old. "MOM! I AM NOT ADORABLE! I AM PRACTICALLY AN ADULT!"

I've never has experience or known anyone who had to deal with those sickos, so perhaps I am a bit like you in that maybe I underestimate the threat of the possibility. I think making everything private is a lot like a good bike lock or a club lock on an automobile. It's a deterrent, but it's not going to stop someone if they're determined.

I do think that you should be keeping records for her. I would LOVE to see an account of my life like the one you are giving her, and I worry that non-digital accounts are susceptible to fire (fireman's daughter thinks about this a lot), but the value of your handwriting on a page in a journal has a value too. My baby book and a diary I have from 2nd grade detailed my intent to marry someone who has now passed away, are invaluable to me. Just...don't lose yourself or the present moment documenting things for a future use.

Personally, I value lists on FB for sharing certain photo albums. I have work people, politico friends, best friends, ex-boyfriends... and they all don't need to have access to the same things. While the lists were a "solution" for me, it turned into just being aware of how I present myself online and I censor myself (I consider this a good thing) online and now I rarely use the list feature because that stuff isn't making it out there in the first place.

Sheryl Crow said she never leaves home without her flip camera to catch every moment of her son. Contrast this against how my dad who (I just recently found out) has been saving things for us his whole life. I worry he didn't always fully appreciate the present. (I'm projecting!)

It's all about balance and you and K are the only ones who know what's right for your family.

Just some food for thought.

-deb

DJ, as you likely know, I'm a fan of the Facebook mobile upload for the super cute, in-the-moment pics of Caroline. I already have all of my photos set to the "friends only" privacy setting, but after reading this post and the comments below, I think I'll spend a little time organizing in more detail who among my "friends" can see my photos. Luckily - you'll make the cut. I did LOVE the pic of Eva yesterday, so tired at daycare. :-) Baby Girls are fun, huh?

I went through the same process with my 5 month old a little while ago. My wife was posting pictures like crazy on Facebook and I was about to start on Twitter as well when I thought...I don't know most of these people. So, my wife and I went into our FB privacy settings and only allow people that we know well to see her pictures (using Friends lists). Don't post about her on Twitter.

I also created a blog for my daughter, Koralaine, as on Posterous. That site allows you to password protect a whole site. (Which is why I created a blog for her there as well as moved my own Wordpress blog there. Sidenote: Posterous has an import feature so you can move all blog posts & comments to the new site really easily if you choose. Pretty slick.)

Anyway, thanks for the post.

DJ - Completely respect your decision to do what you're doing. A lot of my friends, especially those that don't live/work/breathe social media the way we do, are trying to find the same balance. We're in an interesting time. We know how being social affects our professional life, but their is no real case studies in how parents being online will affect their children's future. There's a lady that I know down in LA, who has two daughters with mental health issues -- one of them is hospitalized -- and she blogs about them and their issues on a regular basis. I really worry about how her choices and needing to "vent" will impact her children in the future. It's going to be pretty easy for potential boyfriends, friends, employers to find that information about their struggle during their teenage years. One of her daughters has already experienced problems at school where one of the parents read the blog and it went from there.

As far as what's already out there -- I wouldn't worry too much about trying to get it "back". It's a few months worth of photos and not too much personal information.

In regards to Facebook, have you thought about organizing people into lists? It would be a little time consuming to get the 600+ people on to lists to start with, but once you have the lists set up it's super easy to drop people on to one list or another when you add them as friends. You can then go to the privacy / customization settings and set which lists can see photos and which can't. Again, it will take a few minutes to set up, but then all your photos will automatically default to those settings. (I have 6 or 7 lists for different groups of people, but you could even make it super easy and have 2 lists -- one for those you want to see photos and one you don't.

First and foremost you have to protect your daughter from all the sickos in this world! Thank you Kristina for bringing this to DJ's attention!!!! Of couyrse this is easy for me because I am her great Aunt!
xxxooo
Aunt Suzi

Good advice for "social" parents and soon to be parents

Hi Dj,

100% behind the privacy control on the twitter account, and I would look to do the same via the blog. It may not be fool proof, but it will give you piece of mind and you can concentrate on the fact that you have only given access to people you feel good sharing the info with.

Last time I checked you can choose the friends you share photos with on facebook, and although this would take some time, it would be worth it too.

I wonder if this is something you plan to pass over to her when she is old enough, or if you just wanted to share your excitement of becoming a father, and didn't really have a goal long term.