Some pro-blogging women started out simply wanting to
journal their family stories. Some started because they wanted to vent about the struggles of motherhood.
And some — like us — started with a business in mind.
But regardless of where we started and our initial intentions, somewhere along the road we had to decide what roles our various family members would play in our business plans, schedules and content.
And from what I’ve learned in 8 years blogging is that these decisions are
different for everyone and change over time.
I think it is fascinating to see how much variation there is in the blogosphere and even within each blog over time.
Kids Grow Up
The fact is kids grow up, so even if your blog starts out talking about baby wearing and cloth diapering, it will evolve into new
stages.
(That is actually a good thing to remember when naming your blog - think long term.)
Another fact is you can’t
forecast your kids’ interest and willingness to participate, or their personalities, challenges or stages they may go through.
But, that is okay.
We are in the business of new media that itself is constantly changing, so we are experts in RIDING THE WAVES.
Your kids and family CAN be part of your business as long as you are flexible and able to evolve and change along with them.
We have gone through so many stages and changes from being married moms with newborns to single moms with tweens and now even a teen!
Our kids interest and
involvement in our blog has changed over time.
Since neither Janice nor I talk much about our husbands or marriage, fortunately the transition to single moms was seamless and went unnoticed by most of our readers.
While in the early days with our babies, we could talk about diapering, slings and baby toys, those stages ended and now we have to hire a writer if we want to cover a review of a baby sling.
Evolve
But mostly we let our content evolve. So now we get to have fun with our girls doing tween fashion shoots, and cooking, sewing and crafts videos and blog posts.
Now that our girls are older they like to be in videos and photo shoots.
Overall, our girls love our blog, love seeing their photos online and they even won’t stop complaining that we
didn’t do the Ultimate Blog Party this year. (They have so much fun during those photo shoots.)
However, you may notice that Janice’s son
Jackson is rarely featured in our blog content. He was in more photos when he was younger, but he’s 13 now and except for a few photo shoots, he doesn’t want to be active in the blog. And that’s completely fine. If the kids don’t want us to blog about them or take photos, we won’t.
So while I would be cautious when
planning blog content based on your kids, I do think it can work out really well.
Blogging Your Life And Passion
In
fact one of the best ways to find success blogging is by incorporating what you’re already doing in your “real life” into your blog content. For example, if you already are baking with your kids, then blogging about baking with kids makes perfect sense.
When you're writing about your passions and your real life,
that's when you'll be happiest.
So have fun with your kids and teach them about blogging and business while you’re at it.