I've got a post up over at Canada Moms Blog today; this is where you can find it. While you're there, take a look at the other posts. There are some awsome writers in this group and I am continually amazed to be one of them.

In the meantime, I am running about doing the Cancer Society Dessert Party. You are getting this update because my cake needs to cool down before I can ice it.

(Sound of trumpets, and a faint voice shouting 'Chaaaarge'!)

I would ask myself why I do this stuff, except I would not like the answer.

Edited to add the post to this blog on 05, 03, 2012.

04/29/2009

Who knows that you blog?

I read an article in the paper the other day about women who hide their purchases from their husbands or fudge the price they have paid, even when the purchase is made with money they have earned themselves.  My problem is something similar.  When my husband wanders by my office, a space with no door, and asks me what I am up to, I have to switch screens fast. He does not know that I blog.  I do not want him ever to find out that I blog.

My daughters know that I have a blog; the elder one, whose daughter I write about a lot, doesn't mind her daughter's appearances but isn't, as far as I know, interested in reading it.  The younger daughter follows my blog and occasionally comments. I had been posting for almost a year, I think, before I got up enough nerve to tell her about it.  Although she has been very positive, for a while after I knew she was reading it, I was very careful and subdued in what I wrote.  I can't imagine how much I would self censor if I knew my husband were reading it.  Well, I can.  There would be nothing but brief posts about the weather and pictures of birds, unleavened by anything real.
It bothers me a lot that this should be so.  I am, as they say, in my golden years.  You would think I would have more confidence, more strength.  In many parts of my life, I do.  If you talked to the members of the non-profit board where I am chair, they would be amazed to hear that I lack self-confidence. I don't think any student I ever taught would describe me as anything other than forceful.  The truth is that under the wolf's hairy coat there cowers a wimp unable to process even gentle criticism, a childish person much more given to flight than family fight.
Probably most of us have a bit of that inner child.  My inner child is very happy when someone makes a positive comment on a post and does not need very many readers at all to make her feel noticed.  The wretched little self censor that she is requires me to read and reread everything I write, to get the spelling and grammar correct, to obey all the esoteric rules of grammar and syntax, as far as I know them, and to show off every now and again with funny poetry and graphics.  And she positively trembles when I write about what I feel rather than what I think.
And that is, as they say, where the collar chafes. I've come to terms with my daughter knowing what I write, but it took me a while and some conversations with her. I'm vulnerable to my husband in a different way.  I think many of us share those vulnerabilities and that is why so many of us keep our blogs a secret from at least some of those who know us. I could, and would, defend what I say if it were necessary to do so.  But I sure don't want the hassle.
A lot of people have written about this discomfort, as well as concern about what it is appropriate to write about children, family and friends. If you have an opinion, or have written about this, I would love to hear it or be given directions to your site.  What does your inner child fear?
This is an original post for Canada Moms Blog.  When her husband is not looking, Mary G blogs at Them's My Sentiments.