Get Your Mom to Stop Blogging About Your Life
Although your mom has acquired a loyal following on her blog, unfortunately the majority of the content has something to do with the missteps and mishaps of your awkward teenage or early adult years. Even though mom may not call you out by name, it’s still embarrassing to have her blabbering online about how you wet your pants at school when you were six or to describe your back acne in great detail.
And while you don’t want to burst mom’s bubble, you may need some strategic coaxing to get her to use something else as her blog muse and leave your life alone.
Steps
- Go onto her blog website and write about her. She will be annoyed and stop when she feels her private life has been exploited.
- Consider why it bothers you that your mom is using you as "blog-spiration". If your mom is recounting your life in full technicolor, along with your name, this could be awkward and potentially embarrassing. On the other hand, if your mom is being fairly discreet and isn’t calling you out by name, it might not be quite such an issue. Indeed, if her blog is generally read by other adults (most likely other moms) and not even many at that, it's a good idea to reflect over what's making you so shy or upset. Some reasons might include:
- You might feel as if your mom is making fun of what you consider to be very personal events in a public sphere. Although it may be okay to joke around with immediate family members about the time you responded amusingly or even embarrassingly while trying to be cool in front of a group of girls (or guys), you don’t want the world to be in on the “family joke.” Sometimes you need private family jokes to stay that way.
- Your friends’ parents read your mom’s blog. You really don’t want your buddy’s mom to know about your trials and tribulations of dealing with geometry or that your mom busted you during your first kiss. Even though some parents would know better than to go back to their child and share the information, others may talk about it immediately, especially to illustrate points they're trying to make as part of the blog (in which case, it may be done without really thinking things through). You don’t want to leave it to chance that all your friends will know your deep dark secrets.
- It's simply annoying. At this point, you feel as if you can’t do anything without having it go up on the blog. It’s like being on a reality show without signing up. You're annoyed that she takes everything you do and writes about it, no matter how trivial or dull.
- Check in regularly to see how often you are the topic of her blog fodder. Is her blog generally all about you or does she simply sprinkle stories she finds to be hilarious about you every now and again? In some cases, her entire blog could be how crazy it is to be a mom––and if that’s the case, you may have more to deal with than just an occasional post. Conduct a random sampling of her blogs and count the number of posts that are dedicated to “humiliating” or exposing your personal exploits. Compare your posts to the number of overall blogs to arrive at a general percentage or average. If it seems like she is perhaps overdoing it, then it's time to talk.
- Consider what you could live with. If mom’s blog is dedicated to the hilarity of being a mom, you may need to consider first whether it's you who needs to lighten up. If that's not the issue, then consider which topic areas you could tolerate being posted about you, so that you can go into your discussion with her with some solutions rather than a blanket ban on you as a topic. Make a list of topics that are on or off limits for mom. Try to be fair––while you probably just want her to stop altogether, there could be areas that won’t cause any damage to your street cred and allow you to save face with your friends. Some areas to consider include:
- Embarrassing kid stories. Such as the time you cried your eyes out at Disney World when Mickey Mouse said “hi” to you. If old stories about when you were little embarrass you, let her know.
- Sharing pictures. Mom may think the picture of you in the sailor suit is adorable, but you are mortified. Either ask mom to stop posting any pictures of you on her blog or limit them to a few “approved” choices. Alternatively, have her run the choices by you prior to publication, so that you can vet them.
- Academic status. If you got a “D” on the last history test because you accidentally numbered your paper incorrectly, ask her to eliminate any posts that will make you look like a total idiot. Unless she wants to blog about your 4.7 GPA, let her know what she can and can’t say about your smarts. You'll be spending the rest of your life trying to improve your status and online discussion about poor marks can sully your reputation enhancement.
- Relationships. There’s nothing more embarrassing than having your mom talk about a girl or a boy you like in school––or find out that she was lurking around the corner when you were making out. Banish any posts about your relationships, both former and current. In this case, you might like to suggest kindly that maybe she can blog about what’s going on with her life and relationships instead. There are limits!
- Meet with mom about the blog. Once you know exactly how you feel about her blogging about your life and which areas you would prefer she not discuss online, ask her if she could spend some time with you. Choose a time and day when your siblings aren’t in your business or even later in the evening when the younger siblings are in bed.
- Tell mom how you feel. Your mom loves you and most likely doesn’t know her blog bothers you. Tell her that you think her blog is funny (or interesting––give her a compliment) but that you feel embarrassed whenever you see a story where you are involved.
- Explain your feelings. Tell her that you feel embarrassed or anxiety ridden when you see stories about certain topics because you know your friends’ parents read the blog and tell their kids about it.
- Tell your mom where you have concerns about your reputation with employers, peers, professional contacts, etc. She'll understand because every mom wants her child to be successful.
- Provide a resolution. Instead of just telling mom to stop writing about you, provide her with that list of “off limits” topics created before the talk. Be frank about what would make you comfortable, so that she knows the extent to which she is at liberty to include you in her blog.
- Suggest a vetting process for anything she isn't sure about and for images.
- Request that she ask your spouse/partner/date before assuming they want to be in her blog. Give an email contact to make it easier.
- Provide other amusing topic ideas for her to write about on a regular basis. Since you're no longer mom’s prime blog muse, give her hand by finding other topics for the blog. If something funny happens at work or college, tell her the story. However, don’t disclose names or personally identifying details, as it's vital to protect the innocent. If it's going to be too obvious, don't give her the material. Other ideas to help her out include:
- Scan some of the funny news headlines and send her links.
- Send her stories related to her blog topic regularly.
- Show her how to set up Google Alerts or a similar service to help her see what's current in her area of interest.
- Offer to read over her work if she's concerned that it's not up-to-scratch. Be sure to set a deadline on this though, as she needs to trust her own writing skills sooner rather than later.
Tips
- Remember that your mom loves you and is only sharing stories that she finds endearing or relevant. Most likely, she isn’t out to destroy your life; for her, it's probably about the thrill of sharing her love through a medium that is easy, fun and delightful to use. Keep seeing it this way rather than getting frustrated or assuming the worst.
- Some people need a place to vent without being judged or questioned, if her blog is entirely negative but she's not that nasty in her interactions that could be what's going on. In that case, make sure your employer and others who may take negative content seriously know that's what she's doing and it's out of context.
- You may find that your mom has things to teach you about blogging if you want to start blogging. If this is the case, letting her teach you about aspects of blogging can be a great way to share ideas on preferred content that doesn't feature you.
- When it's not that positive or loving it will be very obvious to other people. Talk to outside experts, especially counselors and people who understand emotional abuse, to find out if she's crossing the line or just using her blog as a place that she can vent all her aggravations unquestioned.
Warnings
- If you have a job where your personal details need to be kept private, explain this to your mom. Let her know that you could lose your job or have your safety compromised if she blogs about you.
- Don’t go on the offensive and start bad mouthing your mom in public if you're angry. Doing this can really backfire and perhaps even spur the opposite behavior (or some serious grounding if you're still a teen).
- Try a calm talk about your concerns with her on a good day before giving up, a critical mother may not know she's being that negative. If she's abusive she'll defend herself without considering your concerns and then respond by blogging the conversation itself as if you attacked her without provocation. Seek outside help. Talk to a counselor, try to find expert support to help evaluate the situation and guide you in what you can do and how to put up with it till you're legal age - or if you're over legal age, what your rights are when other people write about you.
- If your mom's blog is extremely critical, never shows anything positive about you, consistently causes trouble by exaggerating your faults and includes her fears as if they were fact, it's a much more serious situation. Emotional abuse is still abuse. Social abuse, destroying your reputation and especially your credibility with other people, is part of the pattern. One hot button topic is if she paints you as a constant liar overreacting to "the least little thing." That's a defense so that when she crosses the line you won't be believed.
- Don't sacrifice your siblings for your privacy. Explain to your mom that every one of you wants the right to have a say over how many details are let loose on the public readers!
