This entry is an exercise in thinking out loud and also fishing to see if other people have thoughts on the topic:
Today Howard aired an Open Letter which included a picture of him wearing our newest t-shirt. Gleek is also in the picture and that is what I have mixed feelings over. The back of my brain has a worrysome voice which whispers to me that putting my children’s real names and pictures on the internet for public perusal somehow lessens their safety. Logically I just don’t think this is so, but I have a hard time shutting up that voice.
Suppose some child predator sees my child’s picture and name on the internet somewhere. That person has to then connect the child with a location, not too hard I suppose. Then that person has to stake out the locations where my child will go, and find an opportunity where no one is watching to harm my child. I could try to hide the fact of my child’s existence, but this would be fairly impossible to do. Birth records, census records, school records, and numerous other records are all available to ingenious people. I feel like I do much better to control physical access to my child. None of my children are yet old enough to keep themselves safe without adult help, so I have to make sure that they aren’t left without reliable adults nearby. This does more to keep my kids safe than keeping their names secret or refusing to publish pictures.
And yet pictures and names are powerful. Despite all of the above, I still intend to use nicknames when speaking of my kids online. It may do nothing to protect, but it causes no harm. I have mixed feelings about the picture. I feel strange about using my child’s picture as part of a sales pitch. Part of me wants everyone to see how wonderful my little girl is. Part of me worries about who is seeing how wonderful my little girl is. Howard’s increasing fame is a factor as well. The more people who see the picture, the greater the odds that one of them is psychotic in a way that could threaten my children.
On the other hand children are overwhelmingly harmed and abused, not by strangers, but by friends and family. That says to me that the risk in posting pictures is very low. But isn’t any avoidable risk worth avoiding?
I have no conclusions, only thoughts. I’d be happy to know your thoughts too.
All right, this is going to be a very bizarre, um, tack, but.
All over the internet, there is porn. There is a lot of porn. And, if you dig even a little bit, you can find the name, likely address, and even sometimes phone number, of nearly any of the people in any of this porn. yet, we almost never hear of porn stars getting stalked/attacked/etc. If there were, the porn industry would dry up from lack of, er, labor, and pdq at that.
Are there, seriously, more stalkers of children out there than there are of adults? It’s doubtful. Are these predators really gonna travel halfway across the country to abuse some kid they saw on the internet when there are literally thousands in their home town? doubtful.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Not in that sense, at least. Whether you want your kids in the limelight is still a complicated decision, but predation in particular is really not one of the serious concerns.
Vorn
Being honest, I’m of two minds on the matter:
1) If you’re a ‘big name’ in any way, there will be people who will get obsessed with you and your family. Celebrities know this all too well – there will be someone who will attach their feelings-of-self-worth or some other psychological need that they feel is not fulfilled in their life to someone who is recognizable and for some reason supposedly fills that emotional void. Granted, putting this on the Internet means a wider audience than you might otherwise see with the kid’s photo in whatever school albums (do they publish those anymore?) would have… but at the same time, not all these people will have the means or ability to travel that far in. The fact that you’ve kept your address off the Internet, for the most part, helps your cover – a city is a big place to search.
But, at the same time, you can’t protect the child from everything and everyone – school carries its own risks, as does taking them to the mall or out to the park where some predator may lurk and wait for opportunities. And, unlike our hypothetical Internet-based predator, they’re already there and thus have opportunity and means. Even if you or other responsible adults are with them most of the time… kids do tend to wander, either because they don’t know better (when they’re younger) or to assert their independence (this happens when they hit 10-12). As you’ve noted, photos are a lot easier to use to identify people than names are… but names link to data that photos usually don’t, so your policy of ‘no names’ is probably the best compromise when balancing the desire to talk about your family versus the need to protect your own privacy.
2) Kids need to learn to recognize danger. If a kid doesn’t grow up with at least the awareness of it, later on, and then learn techniques to protect themselves, then they’re easy prey as soon as they’re old enough to want to be independent. Thus, you cannot (and maybe should not) protect them to the point of shielding them from all harm – you can’t be there all the time, and they also need to learn how to defend themselves (be it by finding a Block Parent, a police officer, running, or whatever else is required). Without an understanding of danger and the sorts of dangers that lurk out there, then they’re easy pickings (or naive) to what the world can present.
No, the world’s not a horrible pit of festering evil that’s waiting to steal your kids away the moment your back’s turned… but neither is it as depicted in children’s programming, where everyone is trustworthy and friendly and kind. The problem is finding a balance between protecting them till they can recognize threats, and overprotecting them till the point where they either rebel (and seek out such threats knowingly, in order to defy you) or else are helpless before them (since they’ve never confronted it, they either accept things at face value or else choose to do nothing).
But that’s just an old, paranoid man’s opinion, based on his own experiences and thoughts.
Names are more dangerous than pictures
That’s my gut feeling. Anyone can put a full name into Google, and even a relatively common full name like “Sandra Tayler” won’t yield too many hits — most of which are about you. With a name, you can find out a lot of information through public records, too.
Pictures, on the other hand, are much harder to search by. This is why I’m not too worried about using my own picture on my LJ, but I don’t make my name publically available.
I also think the risk isn’t so much that something dangerous would happen to your children, per se, but that unwanted notoreity might make them uncomfortable at some future date. Again, this is more of a risk with names than pictures. Your children will have the same names for a long time to come (if not the rest of their lives), while in five years, odds are only friends and relatives will be able to identify them based on their appearance today.
So I’d say you’re right to use pseudonyms for the kids, and that the picture thing is less of a concern.
My thoughts:
It’s fine using psuedonames, but for a public “face” such as schlockmercenary there is no need to show any of your children.
As for showing the world how wonderful your children are, that’s up to you. Perhaps locked entries on livejournal or similar site, or hidden or passworded directories are more appropriate.
It is neither dangerous nor safe.
I realize I’ve started with a rather cryptic title, but I’ll do my best to explain. First, a quick introduction: I’ve been a long-time reader of Schlock, and have finally broken down and obtained a LiveJournal account so I can participate in these conversations. Hi. 🙂
I need to start with a caveat: I’m about to get into what is certainly going to sound like bad news, and the bad news has to come first — but there is good news to follow. Also, please understand that I’m an Internet professional, not a stalker; however, I will be citing specific examples of what one can do with today’s available information — it is the only way I can accurately paint a realistic picture of the situation. I don’t want to sound creepy, but neither do I want to pull any rhetorical punches.
The bad news is that whatever line of celebrity you’re trying not to cross on your children’s behalf has already been crossed. A simple search out on the Internet readily connects the names Sandra and Howard Tayler with a phone number and address, and the address leads readily to a school district. It would not take much more effort to pinpoint exactly which schools your children are going to, and once someone has reached that level of geographic precision, a last name is all they will need to identify your children conclusively.
Even from out here in Virginia, I can readily call up satellite images of the town with enough detail to learn accurately the landmarks and terrain of the area; I could talk about the trip from your home to school as though I were a native. Now we imagine that I learn the name of the local hospital, and it becomes easy to imagine a grave scenario (I will use fictitious geographical information here): “Hey, young Ms. Tayler… I’m looking for the daughter of Howard and Sandra Tayler, would that be you? I’m afraid I have some bad news. Your parents have been taken to Charleston Hospital because they’re very sick. I saw them on Main street between the donut shop and the McDonald’s while they were on their way to pick you up, and an ambulance took them away. They wanted me to come and take you there. Will you come with me?”
A grim scenario indeed. Such a story would be very plausible to a child’s ears, because I know all the right names and all the right places, and their fear for their parents’ well-being will override much of the common sense they would otherwise have.
However, this is something that *every* parent must face the possibility of encountering, famous or otherwise. Here comes that good news I promised: the problem comes not from whether it might happen, but how you teach your children to react if it does. If someone approached your children maliciously, it would have to be in a safe place. Why? Because you only leave your children in safe places! Your child will always have someone to ask for help in such a case. So, what is your child going to do? Go with the stranger, or go get an adult? It’s all about what you teach them to do. Teach, and teach often.
So, is it safe to post the names and/or pictures of your children online? I cannot call it safe, but neither is it dangerous. It only infinitesimally increases the possibility of an occurrence which your children should already be prepared for.
The names and pictures question is far more relevant to a question of celebrity — the names Howard and Sandra Tayler are more or less forever entwined with Schlock Mercenary. It is fair to allow your children to make the decision whether they want their names entwined with it as well, or if they want to remain disassociated from it. It would be difficult to imagine them not wanting to be a part of the family enterprise, but for some kids and/or teenagers, it’s easier to swallow the family enterprise if they are asked to be a part of it, not told.
In conclusion: There is nothing more to fear from posting children’s names and pictures to the Internet than there is otherwise, but if your daughter ever wants to run for Senator, she might appreciate not having her name associated with a mercenary amorph who burns his enemies and eats their ashes. 🙂
I’m sorry to finally de-lurk with such a heavy post. I’ll be trying to participate in lighter conversation for a while to balance myself out. 🙂
I honestly wish I knew…
I wish I knew what one thing could be said here to settle your worries, Oh Better Half To The Howard, but I do know this…
If I am at ALL typical of the average reader (we’ll hope not, but work with me here), if anything ever happened to your kids, you’d have a small army decending upon your town to hunt down whoever did it…
And I’m pretty sure that should we find the person first, they’d REALLY wish the cops had gotten them first…
I know I have this thing against hurting kids, and I tend to react in this rather violent way when they get hurt…
*eye twitch*
I’m ok… Honest…
my two pence worth
I think if someone wanted to stalk your kids, it is, alas, far more likely to be someone in the neighbourhood than someone on the internet. The precautions you’ve taken seem reasonable to me and the rest is as other posters have wisely noted – teaching your children to recognise the dangers that, sadly, are out there.
If I have any concerns, it would be using your kids to advertise Schlock. I don’t think it’s necessary, considering the target audience, but that’s just me.
Now, what I’d really like to know is the criteria you used for choosing their nicknames. I’m intrigued 🙂
I’ve … gone through a couple of things lately, that I think you’ll have some understanding of. I’m going to think out loud too, in the hopes that you’ll get something out of it.
After the Elizabeth Smart thing happened in UT (lived there at the time), I (never seriously) considered buying a Browning M2 .50 heavy machine gun, some sandbags, and camping outside my daughters’ window at night. Death and Mayhem, Schlock-style, seemed like the only reasonable solution: if I kill enough people, eventually there will be noone left who wants to hurt my daughters.
I never did resolve that, but something else that I’ve been dealing with more recently combined with your thoughts to become Solutionator.
The book of Helaman talks a lot about the Gadiantons. Because I work with a couple of conspiracy nuts, it was brought rather forcibly to mind recently that I do believe in conspiracies, and probably rather a lot of them, or maybe one that is widespread, who’s to say. So I’m searching Helaman for a solution, and the only thing I can come up with boils down to “read, pray, and go to church”, or so, the standard Happy Fun Sunday School Answer To All Questions. There isn’t a lot that I can DO about the conspiracies, unless I want to become sommat Frank Castle and go killing everyone involved. That doesn’t seem like a very good idea, so I’m stuck with teaching my children the gospel, teaching them caution, and being paranoid until they’re old enough to hopefully be cautious and not paranoid. And, like you say, control physical access to them, etc etc.
They say that the gospel has all the answers. I say the gospel has THE answer: Read your scriptures daily, pray always, and attend all your meetings/fulfill your callings (including Xther-hood). The Lord will handle whatever you can’t, or else he won’t, and you’ll die and get martyr points.
*shrug*
I’m feeling a little “what will be, will be” today, which is probably an improvement from the last two weeks.
Re: It is neither dangerous nor safe.
Indeed – welcome to the Information Age. Commercial satellite imagery, online databases, and good search capabilities have allowed people to plumb information with an ease and thoroughness that simply did not exist fifty years ago… which is why the United States government is still pursuing data-mining operations, if under less conspicious names than ‘Total Information Awareness’.
When it comes down to it, the kids are only as ‘safe’ as you’ve taught them to be. They need to recognize that wandering off with a random stranger may not be the best response to a situation, and that just because a person says they’re a policeman doesn’t mean that they really are such a thing.
As it is, there’s enough information out there about Howard due to his position in Novell (and mentioning that in his bio alone was damning, if one wanted privacy) to make it relatively easy to locate y’all, short of moving to Alaska and changing your identities. While this isn’t necessarily a post to suggest you do that, be aware that the fears are valid… though at the same time, they’re fears more general to ANY parent, be they famous or not. I can punch in just about anyone’s name and pull up a lot of information – granted, it’s easier with you and Howard because of your (relative) fame, but it could be done with Chalain or just about anyone else you know – private detectives do this sort of thing as part of their livelihood, after all.
Danger can come from near and far – it’s how the kid’s trained to handle it that counts more.
The internet is, in fact, full of scary people. Well… “full” probably isn’t the right word, since (I’d imagine) for every psychotic maniac, there are several thousand sane people, and many of those are perfectly pleasant and friendly people.
But then… the internet has only as many scary people as the world does, and I wouldn’t think that posting a picture on the Internet is any more dangerous than, say, allowing your child to play in a public park. All you can do – all any parent can ever do – is keep an eye on your child, teach her how to be safe and careful about dealing with the world, and if she’s anything like you and Howard, she’ll grow up smart and wise and capable of handling these things.
So this has all been kind of vague, but I don’t think you have anything more to fear from the Internet than you do from the real world. Which isn’t to say that there’s no danger at all, but just that it’s not any worse… the Internet is a community like a neighborhood is, in many ways, though it’s more possible to stay completely anonymous online than it is in a neighborhood… Ultimately, I’m not really sure where I was going with this – like you, I don’t really have conclusions – but I don’t believe any harm would come to your child from posting a picture like that. Particularly given that you and Howard are already becoming recognized through the comic, and we already know your children by nicknames and their exploits on your journal, if not by real name and appearance.
Even so, if it is something you’re concerned about, I would imagine that your journal would be a “safer” place to post pictures, since it is somewhat removed from the comic itself.
All I can offer on this one is from Helen DeWitt’s novel, “The Last Samurai.”
In one chapter, Sybele, not the best mother in the world, doesn’tr notice when her small son, Ludo, leaves the concert they are attending and walks home; he leaves her a note on his seat, not wanting to disturb her.
When she realize what happened, Sybele flies off the handle, terror- and panic-stricken and with “what could happen” running through her head.
Then, she tells herself:
“Differentiate ‘possible’ from ‘likely.'”
In this case, you need to do the same: Differentiate all the things that could happen from the things that are likely to happen. It’s not easy, as a parent, to be strictly logical about things that endanger children, but it is necessary for sanity.
really, the only way you could make your children totally safe would be to move out to the middle of nowhere, in a fortified keep, homeschool the kids, never let them see anyone else, and never let anyone know where you went. but even that wouldn’t actually work.
as said before, the best thing you can do is educate your children (i’ve never understood the idea of sheltering your children to the point that they have no idea what to do if something like this happened) let them know that there’s ALWAYS time to go to a known and trusted adult, a teacher for instance. teach them the standard “don’t talk to strangers” stuff, make sure they’re in safe places with trusted adult supervision. just as it’s more likely to be in a car accident within a couple miles of home, it’s vastly more likely to be snatched by someone close to home. of course that doesn’t mean you should abandon all friends and family and become a swiss family robinson.
in all probobility your children are pretty much as safe as any other children. howard’s gaining fame, yes. but the truth of the matter is, he’s not a movie star, he’s not a musician (currently) and webcartoonist fame isn’t really the same as superstar fame (i doubt there’s an army of paparazzi staking out your home for the forseeable future)
and like what was said earlier, there’d be a (not so) small army flocking to your door on even a rumor of trouble. and really, thats a lot more then most people have 🙂
Thank you all for your thoughts. It is good to know that intelligent and thoughtful people tread the same mental pathways as myself and arrive at very similar places.
I fully intend to teach my children safety skills. I will teach them to be confident and to stand up for themselves even in opposition to me. I will teach them how to select a safe person to help them if they are in trouble. I will teach them how to set limits and require others to accept those limits.
And I’ll add all of that to the huge and ever growing list of things-to-teach the children. Fortunately if I live the principles I’ve just listed, the kids will learn more from my example than from any school safety session. Behave how you want your kids to behave.
Re: Names are more dangerous than pictures
I can only second that opinion. Using names, especially full names, makes it really easy to find people on the net.
Lately, I myself have tried to find some old school companions whom I have not seen for years. All I needed to do was google their names, take a look at some of the resulting webpages and then I got at least their email address. For most of them I could also tell where they were currently working and I even found some of them on pictures (e.g. team pages on company homepages).
So, keeping the names of the net for as long as possible is a good idea. Though, as soon as they are old enough to surf the web unattended, you won’t have much control about that anymore… That’s why I think every parent that allows his/her kids to surf on the web by themselves should first have a talk to them about what awaits them and which rules that should follow.
T*