I don’t personally think I’d trust a blog about parenting if the blogger revealed the names of their children! I’d think that blogger was exploitative. But someone else might think the opposite — that blabbing about your kids to virtual strangers is the only way to earn trust and develop a connection.

From time to time, I do regret using my son’s real name on my blog. (Or at least I’ve let you all think it’s his real name, Mwahahaha!) On the other hand, I’m confused as to why this would be “exploitative” (that would be pretentious-ese for ‘exploitive’). I once called my son by his “real name” in front of a complete stranger. That’s gotta break some law, right?

On the other hand, calling my son by his name has nothing to do with earning trust and developing a connection with you guys (no offense). I pretty much do it because when I started blogging it was all about letting my family know what Hayden was up to. But really, if you think about it, isn’t “blabbing about your kids” at the heart of almost every mom blog?

In fact, if I don’t see some mention of a blogger’s children somewhere, whether real names, pseudonyms or the stupidest nicknames I’ve ever heard, I’m pretty unlikely to trust his/her parenting advice. We all remember what it was like to have no kids and all the answers.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. And do you think that this:

is less exploitive than this?

I obscured his identity…