Why Blogging Has Been Hard --part 1

It's NaBloPoMo so I'm blogging.  I'll write more about why later--but today is more about the "why not?"  Why haven't I been blogging?

It's a multifaceted situation.

I read an article a while ago that really hit on some of my feelings, called, "Why I Decided to Stop Writing About My Children."  Basically she writes about how it was hard for her to write about her children--particularly as they got older--and maintain their dignity and privacy.

I don't want things I write about my challenges with my children to become their internal narratives about themselves--possibly limiting them in their dreams and aspirations.  I don't want my children to look back and feel hurt or embarrassed about the things I wrote about them.

It's different with small children.  Everyone recognizes the universal--even adorable--shortcomings of small children.  But as they get older they are investing more in their choices.  They are more intentional.  They are thinking deeper and remembering more.

And thus I recognize that the commentary I make on their lives and choices (particularly in a "permanent" location)  has the real potential to impact them.  

Yet how do I write about what's real and what is meaningful to me without going in to some of these more sensitive topics?

I hit the transition and I quit.  As soon as the things I wanted to write about I had misgivings about, I didn't.

But now I'm going to try again.  To write.  But to respect my (aging) children as whole persons, and honor the trust that they don't know they have placed in me, as their mother, to protect them and nurture them.