Do parents have the right to blog about their kids?

I’ll go out on a limb here and suggest that it’s a question many bloggers in the Aspergersphere don’t want to ask.

Sure, some parents blog under false names. So then maybe that’s okay. But a lot of us blog under our real names, or we blog in a way that it’s not hard to figure out who’s being talked about. Then what?

Is it okay?

After all, it’s hard parenting an Asperger child. Right? Do we not have the right to express ourselves and get advice and support from others?

Here are some of my thoughts on the right to blog about our kids:

1. The child “owns” his/her Asperger Syndrome, not the parents.

We adults — teachers, occupational therapists, psychologists, parents –  think we own the Aspergerness of the children we work with. We want to have control over the situation, so we make the situation “ours.” We call the shots, choose and make the accommodations, direct the teachers, read (and write) the books, name the symptoms and behaviors. Some of us even exploit it for personal profit.

Because of this control freakishness, we forget that the Aspergerness belongs to the child.

Our job is to pass on control to the kid, not to keep it for ourselves.

2. Professionalism demands privacy and confidentiality.

The teachers, OTs, and doctors who work with Asperger children can’t blog about them, share information about them (without permission), or identify their issues publicly. Should parents not hold themselves to the same standards?

3. The internet has a loooooooooooong memory.

You’d think maybe it’s okay to blog about a toddler. Heck, he can’t even read, and neither can his friends. But those blogs will still be floating around the internet years from now, for anybody to read. Including them. And their friends. And their friends’ moms.

Even if you take the site down, other bloggers may still be quoting you, keeping your words in circulation.

4. Older kids have strong privacy needs.

Being a teen is tough, and doing it with an Asperger perspective is even tougher. They and their friends spend most of their free time on the internet. How long before some monstrous classmate finds the blog and starts passing it around Facebook to humiliate the kid?

How hard will it be to defend what you’ve written? How much will your child feel exposed and betrayed?

5. Parents don’t own their children.

Children are their own persons. Just because they have Asperger Syndrome doesn’t mean that they lose the right to their dignity, or that they somehow are more “deserving” of being blogged about. That’s treating the child like a thing, instead of a person.

We need to ask whose rights come first.

Parents focus on their own pain and confusion. Naturally. They reach out for help. They try to help others. Naturally.

But is there a way to do this while still placing our child’s dignity before our own hardships?

If there’s any chance that our need to blog hurts our child, now or in the future, then do we have the right to do it?

At least think about it.