Full disclosure

Baby blogging hits the big time - or in this case, The New York Times [reg. req'd]. So, I don't feel so bad about talking about diaper changes or how tired we are or how expensive formula is or the other petty things about child-rearin' for a mostly unseen audience.

Then again, if the New York Times is just getting wind of it, this baby blogging thing has got to be yesterday's news. I'll have to stay on top of the next wave of technology necessary for passing along stories of tantrums and skinned knees.

In the NYT article, there are several links to real artistes of the child-oriented blog including Dooce, Trixie Update, Zero Boss and Mimi Smartypants. They have all taken the concept to a new level, almost to the point of writing as therapeutic release. Many of them are written for an audience of peers -- young parents or would-be parents -- and are far from family-oriented. Dooce in particular is so raw with emotional content that, although Heidi and I both read it regularly, we choose not to link to it here, simply because at times it's so adult-oriented. And our parents are reading this, for crying out loud! (But, by all means, if interested, Google them and you'll see what I mean.)

This particularly caught my eye:

How will the bloggee feel, say, 16 years from now, when her prom date Googles her entire existence?

"Fundamentally children resent being placed at the heart of their parents' expression, and yet I still do it," said Ayelet Waldman, whose blog, Bad Mother (bad-mother.blogspot.com), describes life at home with her four young children and her husband, Michael Chabon, the novelist. Ms. Waldman, a novelist herself, has blogged about her baby Abie's recessive chin and gimpy hip and the thrill of the children's going back to school after winter break.

"A blog like this is narcissism in its most obscene flowering," she said. "But it's necessary. As a parent your days are consumed by other people's needs. This is payback for driving back and forth to gymnastics all week long."

At some point, however, parents may find themselves at a crossroads. Molly Jong-Fast, who has been a frequent subject for her mother, Erica Jong, said, "There comes that inevitable moment when parents who write about their children need to choose between their writing and their children's privacy and honor." Ms. Jong based a children's book on her daughter as well as a pilot for a Fox sitcom. "There's no compassionate way to do both, so either the parent or the child will end up feeling resentful."

I don't want to turn Colin into Erica Jong's daughter, but I feel there is something to be gained by sharing this experience via the Internet.

• It allows us a venue to share our stories in a public way for familial support.


• It allows us a venue to post all our fears and concerns for later scrutiny.


• It allows us a venue to look back at and think how silly we were to worry.


• It allows us to pinpoint the exact moment at which we irretrievably messed up Colin for good.


• It allows Colin an opportunity to realize just how much we cared for him, even when he didn't know quite who we were, or how he came to be.


• It gives us a chance to stack Colin up against all the other babies of the Internet, and prove that we too can breed.


• It allows us to share him with those not lucky enough to be with him as often as we are.

So, this blogging thing can be good and bad. But hopefully, Colin will enjoy reading it someday, as much as we enjoy writing it. Or if he doesn't, we can use the excuse that his grandparents MADE us do it.