About

Ta[l]king Care: Family Blog Lines is authored by Fiona Joy Green  and Jaqueline Mcleod Rogers. We are mothers of adult children.  We are also engaged academics from the University of Winnipeg, located on Treaty One Territory, the lands of the Anishinaabeg, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota, and Dene peoples, which is also the homeland of the Métis Nation. Fiona teaches in the Women’s and Gender Studies Department and Jaqueline in Rhetoric, Writing and Communication. Between us, we’ve banked hours of reflective and teaching talk about mothering, writing, social media, and the internet.

As we visit the blog and continue with updates, we notice a movement from exploring the ethics of mommy blogging to a wider lens: exploring family engagement with media and technologies. This area is lively, with technology developing and roles changing. We all make decisions about protecting privacy, consciously or not, and about what we buy, use, and reveal. We want to offer space for open discussion and reflection about these practices and decision-making processes.

Together we have co-written a blog about mothering and writing since 2011, and we continue enjoying the twists and turns of thinking through sharing, disclosure, and self-censoring in digital writing situations. As feminists, we are grappling with ways to invoke privacy values and boundary setting in a liberatory tradition that recognizes advocacy and agency. We and interested in charting how cultural shifts affect gendered expressions within families.

As teachers / writers / scholars, we have a longstanding interest in the reflective, educative, and revelatory nature of personal writing. Does writing a parenting blog necessitate presenting news about close relations and relationships? What is frank and fair and what constitutes stepping over the line in talking about others? What are dangers of unsanctioned digital talk? Are there measures or flexible standards to guide how much to reveal about self and others, and how do these questions play out for bloggers with an online presence?

We’re hoping this website serves as a place for communal discussion, where multiple voices can be spoken, listened to, and shared. We know you’re out there making decisions about parenting and telling. We hope to make our site an interactive space for you to share, reflect and come to terms with your own privacy code, as it develops and changes. You may hear the voices of others who support or challenge your views.

We invite you to check out our posts and offer any comments or challenges you care to share!