Where can we talk honestly online about empty nesting?
Things get tricky when you and your family hang out in the same online spaces.
Welcome to Parent of Adults, an ongoing conversation about life beyond the empty nest with author Asha Dornfest and a super-thoughtful community of subscribers. Join us — sign up for a free subscription below.
Today, I’m pondering how and where we can talk openly online, parent-to-parent, without trampling on our adult kids’ privacy- and parental TMI limits. 🤔
But first! I want to thank everyone who has submitted a Mailbag question. Reading your questions is so heartening. We know we’re all in the same boat, but hearing the details makes it real, you know? #foreshadowing
I’ll send out our first Mailbag post next week (maybe the week after). I’m not sure what the cadence will be yet — let’s just see where it takes us.
From now on, you’ll find the Mailbag submission link 📬✨ at the end of every email and in the FAQ pinned to the new Mailbag section of the website. If you didn’t catch the announcement, here it is.
The privacy thing
In the announcement, I pointed out that the Mailbag activates our “bucket brigade” of collective wisdom but doesn’t address a privacy/specificity conundrum:
How do I talk about empty nesting with enough specificity to be useful when, by definition, it’s all knotted up with the private lives of my kids, husband and mom?
I’ve wrestled with this for a while, and it bubbled up in a couple of your Subscriber survey responses.
I tried to sidestep this issue before I started this newsletter by asking each of my family members for their privacy guidelines. With clarity and their explicit blessings in my back pocket — perhaps naively — I didn’t anticipate running into the bumps I have.
Big surprise: writing about our lives is complicated because our lives are complicated.
Let me pause here to acknowledge that my writerly challenges aren’t exactly universal. But the issue of how and where we can talk honestly about our parenting lives online touches all of us who seek community on the Internet.
The gang’s all here
In part, the privacy issue is an audience issue. When I imagine the “we” I write for, it’s primarily an audience of peers. But this being the Internet, anyone can drop by, including my family members.
Which is great. I love being able to share what I do with my family. My husband and Mom and father in-law are here, my cousin’s here, extended family… I’m so grateful they’re interested and supportive. My kids aren’t regulars (that I know of) but should they read this newsletter, I like that they might see a different side of me.
And.
… and all this overlap complicates storytelling because we’re living what I’m writing about in real time.1
The observer effect
Respecting my family’s privacy boundaries involves more than just safeguarding their personal details. I also need to be cognizant of the observer effect: that the act of talking about my life changes it.
There’s only so much I can say about parenting (or marriage or supporting my Mom) before my narrative begins to impact my family members’ narratives.
I’ve always been up front with my kids about my feelings. Hopefully I didn’t go full TMI when they lived at home, but they generally knew what was up with me.
Since they’ve moved out, I’ve gradually lowered the volume on my “feeling” talk. Not so much as to be distant or fake — they’d spot manufactured “chill” a mile away. But enough to help them feel confident I’m managing and even enjoying life as an empty nester. Fly! Be free! I’m okay!
It’s such a fine line. I believe in modeling imperfection2 — it’s easier to work with your own mess-ups when you’ve watched your parents fumble with theirs. But I don’t want to unnecessarily add “worry about Mom” to the list of pressures in their newly-independent lives.
Our messy stories are important
All that is to say: it can be difficult to walk the line between specificity and privacy when talking about one’s family life online. Nevertheless, we must find a way to do it.
It’s so important for us to be able to share the messiness of our day-to-day lives with each other. Not overshare, mind you, but be real with each other, so we can see ourselves in each others’ stories and learn from each others’ experiences.
How else will we know we’re not alone in the joys, terrors, frustrations, and wonder of all this?
I want to push myself to more skillfully navigate this tricky territory. I’m not the only one facing this issue. Other writers like
, , , , , , , and are working through these challenges with grace, heart and humor.The addition of our Mailbag Q&A is a potential game-changer because it will open up space for your anonymous questions. (Submit them here!) If you know of other good community Q&A resources for parents of adult children, drop the link in the comments. The best I’ve found (arguably the best, period) is the Grown & Flown Parents Facebook group, but I’m no longer on Facebook, so I’d love any pointers.
I also intend to make occasional use of the paywall when I want more privacy or a smaller audience on a particular post. I had a private chat space in mind, but I’ve shelved that idea for now. I’m not yet clear how (or how often) I want to employ the paywall, so for now I’ll just use it as needed.
How have the privacy boundaries shifted in your family? Do you know of other writers (or podcasters or other online communities) who manage family privacy issues well?
Love,
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This is an amusing parallel to the cringiness young people often feel when parents show up in their online spaces. Which is why I keep my head low on my kids’ Instagram accounts.
In 2016, Christine and I recorded a podcast episode about why modeling imperfection is a good thing. I’ve come back to that conversation several times over the years.
Definitely relate. I have been writing publicly on a blog since 2004 and yes, my 5 children and darling husband have been main characters in my musings. But the kids are grown lol bing their best adult lives and two of the grandkids are now teens. The last few years I really have become more aware and sensitive to that their lives are their stories to tell if they choose. If I do write about them it is with their blessings. It’s a challenge and a learning process for sure.
My husband gets the free version of my newsletter but not the paid version which is exactly as it should be.
I removed his mother as a subscriber when I wrote something about how I was mad at him and she blabbed about it to him like "I heard you were in trouble." Not cool.