Mommy Blog Lines: Tal(k)ing Care

I joined CafeMom last week to see if it fills its purpose as an online community where moms (or prospective moms) can go for support, sharing their experiences, seeking information, and entertainment. I’ll admit, my expectations were low as I had sought out some background information that highlighted the major commercial aspects to this site. As the cliché goes, “If you’re not paying you’re the product” and CafeMom is no exception. On their Privacy Policy page they are clear that my zip/postal code, age, and gender (all of which I provided when making my account) can and will be shared with third parties for targeted marketing. CafeMom also states in their Terms of Service that anything you post is fair game. I probably could’ve paraphrased the following but their extended series of adjectives and verbs really drives home the point: By submitting content to the Site, you grant to CafeMom and its successors in business an irrevocable , perpetual , worldwide , royalty-free...

http://halegrafx.com/printables/free-printable-my-little-pony-birthday-invitation-set/ For some, having Her Bad Mother Blog back on line is good news. For us, it's interesting and offers a chance to delve into talking about how some bloggers include narratives of their children in their online diary. Kudos to Catherine Connors for being open minded about gender fluid attitudes and parenting practices (see her blog last week on "the politics of my pony" ), however she bases her blog on telling on her son's choices and presenting her 7 year old son "Jasper" as a character who is real. It may be that eventually she will reveal that she is talking about a fictional family, yet at this point she is modeling a time worn mommy blogging strategy of telling about family matters and about difficult passages family members are going through. In the blog she her hands all over it! Our question is whether or not she needs to stick to her own stories without ou...

We want to welcome a guest blogger for a few weeks, who has agreed to explore the issue of privacy online and parenting from her perspective as the parent of a younger child. Over the next few weeks she will talk about where she has boundaries and lines to protect her personal privacy as well as the privacy of family culture--whose stories are these, anyways? She may also visit and review a few mommy blog sites--a kind of good , bad, and ugly tour, so that we get a sense of what's going on in the mommy blog world right now. She might look at what's going on at Cafemom --a blog site for multi users and for marketing; she might also take a look at blogs that are written by private authors. We look forward to her ideas and responses.

We had a terrific workshop today with UW faculty this week to discuss online activity in research and teaching.

There is a mega blog called cafe mom where moms are invited to meet to share experiences and concerns. It's hard to get in because you have to get through the wall of adds and commercial announcements. It sounds so inviting--a coffee break from parenting to share talk with friends. It doesn't feel like that at the crowded and commercial site.  http://www.cafemom.com/profile/register.php?join_group=115189& successURL=%2Fgroup%2F115189 What do you think? There is a link to Mom confessions--described here: About Mom Confessions This is a place for moms to share their secrets with other moms! You can even do so ANONYMOUSLY! Please feel free to join the conversation and share your thoughts and opinions! We hope you'll make yourself at home and enjoy the group! To see or post to all forums: Join Now! See Active Posts - Let's Talk! image credit, cc, wikimedia

We're looking forward to meeting with our invited colleagues from the University of Winnipeg on Monday, March 14th to explore online influences in our teaching, research, and everyday lives. Fiona and Jaque have been studying online privacy and disclosure in a blog for several years. Their interest in examining and identifying ethical issues around online disclosure -- in the form of stories and images -- has been supported by funding from a SSHRC Aid to Small Universities Grant and more presently from the Marsha Hanan Global Ethics and Dialogue Grant. Some of this funding is being used to support this small faculty workshop in a couple of weeks. Our agenda is open. We are looking forward to shearing experiences and hearing how our colleagues have found online communication and information changing their everyday and academic lives.

International scholars, too, are interested in the issues of social media, parenting and children. Check out this great research on why people use social media around the world !