My name is Kelly.
My husband is Rob and we have a son named Graham. We live in the Toronto neighborhood of Don Mills. He is a sound recordist and mixer for television and feature films and I work in communications in the same industry.
I could go on. I have gone on. You can read through my archives and check out a movie I produced, figure out where I grew up and went to high school. Where I used to live. You can read about my mom and dad and his faithful dog and even where I like to vacation.
And that doesn't scare me.
There was a very popular seminar on mommy blogging and public parenting and privacy at BlogHer last weekend and I wasn't there. I didn't go because I'm not interested in that debate. I refuse to wring my hands or gnash my teeth. I get that some people are deeply conflicted about exposing themselves on the Internet and I do, truly do, empathize with them.
But I'm sorted. I'm good. And I'll tell you why.
I am a writer - a writer with a fairly extensive background in reporting and writing for newspapers and I bring this up again not to make myself feel important (okay, maybe just a little) but because it is relevant.
In the lifestyle section of every newspaper in every community across much of the world, columnists publish under by-lines with their real names. Their photo is often featured and they routinely write in first person and reference their families.
We have columnists in Toronto who I feel I know personally and I'm quite sure that's their intention: that's their job and several of them have been doing it for many, many years.
And that's what I do here. I build relationships with my readers by writing about the beauty and poignancy of family life. And I reject the notion that because I do it on the Internet I am somehow more careless and tawdry than those who do it in my local paper. (I'm probably actually safer because only a tiny fraction of my readers are within striking distance of me and my family were they so inclined).
I find it endlessly ironic that I was lambasted for "pimping" out my child in Canada's national newspaper when that same paper often proudly features a sexy, young columnist and single mom who routinely discusses parenting as well as her sex life and personal relationships in far more detail than I ever have. (Read my response here).
Repeat after me: this is not a diary.
It is a column. A lifestyle column, featuring a working mom named Kelly, her husband Rob and a beautiful boy named Graham.
I hope you will continue to enjoy it and if you're ever in Don Mills? Do look me up.
