But the Internet has changed all that. More and more young people are going online to make money. No, they aren’t selling the family treasures on eBay, they’re following in the footsteps of many adults and blogging their way to riches.

OK, riches might be stretching it a bit. But as we all know, there is money to be made expressing one’s opinion online. And whether the subject is fashion, food or feminism, teens usually have opinions to share.

But money isn’t the only motivation for teens to open up online. They enjoy it for the same reasons millions of adults do: it’s fun, it’s therapeutic and it gives the writer a sense of being heard.

But beyond giving them an outlet for creative expression and the opportunity to make a few bucks, blogging is something that can actually impact their future. Even if they’re never ‘discovered’ and gain a wide audience, the writing skills and the discipline required to manage a blog is great preparation for university and, later, jobs in the real world.

Of course, kids who blog need parental supervision to make sure that they aren’t revealing their home addresses along with their innermost feelings. Which brings us to another reason to encourage kids to write online: What better way to find out what your teen is really thinking than to  read her blog?  I can see no downside to this.

For example: this post on Yahoo! Shine.

My son is home!!! And I am really mad at his father.

The title got me to click and see what the heck was going on.

The first sentence was a grabber:

I recently wrote a blog about how I hate it when my son goes to his father's for Christmas.

Then it got better:

So many of you left very nice comments about my tough time while he is gone. There were a few that said I was being petty. Let me Go deeper into this……..

I started to feel like a voyeur. This was pretty personal stuff. But it's not like I'm looking in the author's window. I'm reading something she posted on the Internet.

I'm not sure what the initial post was about, but this one tells the tale of a father who brought his son home after Christmas with an injured thumb. The mother was mad because the kid should have gone to the emergency room, and thinks that dad was too cheap to pay the doctor’s fee. The injury is described in "ER"-level detail: "When I picked him up, it was black and purple and he could not bend it. We went immediately to the ER. After 2 shots of pain killer, they drilled 2 holes in the nail to relieve the pressure." Presumably the couple is divorced and the boy was spending the holidays with his father, although the post doesn't say that explicitly.

So here's my question. Is this fair to the kid, the father, and everyone else involved? Most of us who blog, whether for pay or play, reveal certain details. But it's one thing to talk about a goofy thing your three year old told you. It's another thing to reveal personal details like the ones on this particular Shine post.

It could be a generational thing. I'm selective about what I share with the world, and I think most folks are. Other people don't mind putting it all out there. (That's why Facebook is so successful.) In this case, I imagine that posting these personal details is therapeutic for the author. It is also interesting to other people; the post has over 100 comments. But if I'm the father, I'd be irritated.

Of course, if I'm the father and I really didn't take my son to the emergency room because I didn't want to spend seventy-five dollars, I'm also a major jerk. Part of the problem, of course, is that we don't know what the father did or didn't do. It's possible that he weighed in with a comment; I haven't read them all. Still, judgments will be made – by me, the commenters on Shine, and commenters here. That's the nature of blogs. Once it's out there, it's out there. But is there a line that we shouldn't cross when kids and/or our significant others are involved? Can there be such a thing as too much sharing online?

Source: Yahoo Shine

Image (which is completely unrelated to this topic): sas.org.uk

I happened upon Bette Jo's a Bead a Day a long time ago and am constantly amazed at the writing and honesty that springs forth. But a recent essay deserves special attention, because I'm sure it's something more than a fair share of us are feeling in these tight economic times.

Gee, this cool single mum is frequently asked, why don't you just buy a house?

"When I answer the question honestly, these people tend to look at me like I've just told them I enjoy mosquito's flying up my nose or something. I DON'T HAVE A DOWN-PAYMENT. Yes, I could afford a mortgage payment. I would freaking LOVE a mortgage payment. But when you live cheque to cheque, not able to save anything because all the money goes to bills and food and kids, and you have to juggle buying Christmas presents with which bill you might have to put off for a little while, there IS.no.down.payment."

Oh, and she makes kick-ass gems, too. In this holiday spirit of giving and sharing, I thought you'd love to find a new writer that should definitely be on your must-read list. Feel free to list some more must-reads below.

While the movement is still growing in Australia and the UK (who have just launched a ‘British Mummy Bloggers Carnival‘), US mummy bloggers are attracting huge audiences. Heather Armstrong on Dooce, for example, makes enough from her blog ads to support her entire family.

Yet mummy bloggers still come across the same hurdles that women face in the real world. “Women get dismissed in ways that men don’t,” said Megan McArdle, an associate editor at The Atlantic Monthly told The NY Times. She added that women are taught not to be aggressive and analytical in the way that the political blogosphere demands, and are more likely to receive blog comments on how they look, rather than what they say.

And while big business has been happy to use female bloggers to access a lucrative audience of educated, middle-class women, female bloggers say that their male colleagues and major media groups tended to ignore them, and to link to them less often.

When Techcult, a technology Web site, recently listed its top 100 Web celebrities, only 11 of them were women.

But maybe some mummy bloggers aren’t in it for the money. Maybe, like some corporate working mothers, they like the flexibility of part-time work or the ability to work from home while raising a family.

Other mummy bloggers are in it for the community and camaraderie.

What do you think? Are you in it for the love or the money?

[Image courtesy of the NY Times]

Which is why I'm having so much fun reading Can I Sit With You? — a web collaboration of some really fantastic writers recalling some really unnerving events. Or funny events. Or downright catastrophes. It's like getting the chance to rubber neck someone else's childhood angst and neuroses, and I just can't avert my gaze.

The most recent essay, by Lisa Lucke, offers the perfect blend of humor and humility, and it's all capped off at the end with a jaw-dropping, cringe-inducing revelation — a must-read for anyone who remembers practicing so hard as a child only to be told, well, go read it. I don't want to spoil it. Then there's Dori Ben-David's yarn about her late afternoon encounter with someone she and her friends used to torment. And these are just a few of my favurites.

The site raises money for special education, and the essays are also published in a book. I just wanted to share for a good cause, but mostly, for a good read. If you had an odd childhood, this is the perfect site for you. And really, who didn't?

From her first entry showing a picture of her positive pregnancy test, to her latest post dealing with “a little post-partum depression”, the author handles the topic with a rare level of candour and humour:

I’m trying to get some advice and info that isn’t off a bulletin board style fact sheet. When I google “abortion blog” –because we all know blogs are a great repository for facts and rationality– i get these terrifying pro-life, abortion regret websites. One is called ” silent rain”. UGHHHHH.

WHERE IS THE JUNO OF THE ABORTION WORLD?!?

Other bloggers, however, are describing her tone as narcissistic and glib. In her byline she slams the writer of Knocked Up, declaring “I’m 23. I’m knocked up. And I don’t want to keep it. You can fuck yourself, Judd Apatow. ”

Whether she’ll feel the same way about her choice in 5 or 10 years is uncertain. But it’s refreshing to see some abortion content which is not anguished in tone.

Never question the awesome strength of the blog. Mother of four, Stephanie Nielson of NieNie Dialogues, is one “mummy blogger” who’s readers came out to support in a very significant way, proving the monumential power of the people and the pen keyboard.

On August 16th, Stephanie and her husband were critically injured and severely burned in a small-craft plane accident in Arizona. Currently she is in a medically induced coma and has suffered burns over 83 percent of her body. Her husband was burned over 35 percent of his body and his condition has improved.

“”We’ve formed a whole new community, a community of complete strangers who all care about one thing – in this case, one family – who’s in need,” Stephanie’s sister, Courtney Kendrick, told TODAY’s Matt Lauer on Tuesday.”

Stephanie’s blog focuses on the joys of motherhood in an arena usually reserved for the day to day difficulties. “What she represented to a lot of people is the positive impact of motherhood and what motherhood can be for so many people. I think that’s what people responded to.”

After word got out about the accident the visitors to her NieNie Dialogues jumped from 1,000 a day to about 20,000, many wondering how they could help. To assist the family with their ever mounting medical bills, which are already over US$2 million (insurance covers the first million), a NieNie regular started an auction which grew to about 350 auctions and have raised about US$100,000, a fraction of their bills but a nice chunk none the less.

For more info on Stepahnie, her family and the fundraising efforts, go to the NieNie Recovery site here.

Via Today