Parenting the Fannish Child

[lunabee34]

Here's my contribution to this year's month_of_meta / month_of_meta.

DISCLAIMER: This essay is highly subjective, reflects my own experience, and is in no way intended to suggest a One True Approach to either parenting or fandom.



Before I talk a little bit about how my husband Josh and I have chosen to parent our little fanlet, I want to take a quick detour into my own fannish childhood. I grew up in the pre-internet era watching Star Wars on LaserDisc. I learned to type on an electric typewriter, and I didn’t have an email address until I was in college. And yet, I had an extremely rich fannish life as a kid. My parents were sci-fi and fantasy lovers (and readers in general, Mom especially), so I never lacked access to source material to play with. Some of my earliest fannish memories include pretending to be Princess Leia, writing and performing a Star Trek episode in which my brother and I played all the characters (We wore yarn necklaces with the character names strung on them and flipped to the appropriate name when we changed characters; I made my brother play Geordi and Deanna. I wanted to be Worf and Picard. LOL), and participating in a Star Trek fan club my parents belonged to. This club was mainly a venue for eating and re-watching episodes, but lots of the members did cosplay, and we went to at least one convention as a group where I met Walter Koenig (who was a doll).

I bring up my own fannish childhood for a couple reasons. First, I think that fannishness is often a natural play choice for children. I’ve talked to many people, inside and outside internet-based fandom, who have stories of pretending to be favorite characters from books or TV shows on the playground or covering their walls with posters of favorite celebrities. Second, I think what is significant about my experience and what has contributed a great deal to my participation in online fandom as an adult is that my parents actively encouraged my fannish behavior. We lived in a very rural area, and the only library I could access was the tiny one at school. If my parents hadn’t already owned so many books and been able to spend money on more, my reading experiences would have been severely curtailed. They were also able to take us to movies, spend money to attend sci-fi conventions, and travel to participate in fan club events. My mom even subscribed to a Star Trek magazine, and I exchanged letters with this guy who had advertised for a pen-pal in the classifieds section at the back. I’m sure he was thrilled to correspond with a nine year old. LOL

Although her environment has definitely cultivated her fannishness (just as mine did), my daughter Emma seems like a born fan, engaging in a variety of fannish activities of her own volition and with no prompting from me. One of her favorite games to play with her BFF in early elementary school was Jedi Mom. As Emma explained to me: “We’re Jedis, and we’re moms. We kill the droids, and then we feed the babies.” She loves to draw, and she’s spent countless hours drawing scenes and characters from her favorite books and TV shows—endless incarnations of the Enterprise, Captain Janeway giving Seven a single rose (my baby, she gets the subtext!!), and reproductions of pages from the Inuyasha manga. Well, see for yourself. (These are all from about a year ago.)

















She’s written several completely adorable pieces of fanfiction—one that pits a sassy Captain Kirk against some angry Klingons and another SGA/Inuyasha fusion in which Kagome and the gang must rid feudal Japan from the Wraith. The posters on her wall include “Everything I Need to Know I Learned from Star Trek” and the centerfold from Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Her shelves are lined with Lord of the Rings pez dispensers, Avengers action figures, and figurines from DS9. Emma is, in short, our very own wee little nerdling. Up until this point, though, her fannish engagement has been of the kind that could have occurred pre-internet. With the exception of watching a few fanvids on youtube with me, her fannish activity has been confined to media consumption and the creation of fanworks in a vacuum. Now that she’s getting older (she’s 10.5), Josh and I have a lot of decisions to make about her participation in fandom and her use of the internet in general. What follows is a list of some of the issues I see looming ahead, what we’ve done so far, and what we’re still struggling to figure out.

What media to allow her to consume

At times, the lines we draw seem pretty arbitrary, even to me. We let her watch Inuyasha at ten (although I was afraid in the beginning that it would scare her; it didn’t), but I’m not letting her watch Fullmetal Alchemist for a loooooong time. In general, we don’t let her watch horror, very graphic violence, storylines that depict child abuse or the mistreatment of children (Oh, Kohaku, I had totally forgotten how fucked up your storyline is before we got to that arc *sigh*), and overtly sexual situations. In terms of books, Emma blew the top off the reading placement test in the second grade. She could read just about anything in our house (although her understanding of much of it would be understandably limited given her age and cultural capital), and I don’t have a secret bookshelf where I hide all the adult material. To date, she hasn’t really expressed any interest in reading anything we think is too grown up for her, so I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. And we will. LOL

Not hiding my identity as a fan from her

Emma knows that I write stories about the TV shows we watch together (and some that she’s not allowed to watch yet). She knows I have an LJ and a DW account and that I make posts about my life and about what I read and watch there. I have shown her some fanvids and some fanart of the media she enjoys. She also knows that some of the material I write is not appropriate for children to read. I haven’t kept fandom a secret from her, but I haven’t invited her to join me there yet.

Only offering organized fandom to her as she expresses interest in participating

I don’t want to jump the gun here. Right now, the only online activities Emma has expressed interest in are watching videos on youtube and playing Sushi Cat LOL, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. As she does begin expressing interest in aspects of organized fandom, I will gradually introduce her to them as I feel appropriate.

Introducing general online safety practices

When Emma does express interest in developing an online presence, I intend to keep the computer in the living room so that there’s some level of chaperonage to her internet use. She will not get a cell phone until she’s driving, so she won’t be holed up in her room in the middle of the night surfing the web. I intend to stress to her the importance of not revealing certain kinds of personal information on the internet and all that jazz. I could go on here, but we’ve all read articles about teaching kids to be safe online, and I don’t think I have anything new to say about that.

One thing that’s a bit different than what the average parent may tell her kid about internet safety has to do with the creation of a fannish persona, an identity that Emma can inhabit online but that isn’t necessarily connected to her real life identity. (I know this is a pretty grown up concept, but I don’t anticipate Emma wanting to actively participate in organized fandom for a good long while; I could be wrong, though, and if I am, this might be a difficult concept to get across.) I didn’t get into fandom until I was an adult, but even so the importance of separating my real life and fannish identities didn’t occur to me at all, and I didn’t realize how much I would come to regret not doing a better job of protecting myself. I shudder sometimes to think of the potential damage that Emma could do in those regards if she enters fandom ten or fifteen years earlier than I did!

Other differences will include lessons on fannish etiquette, avoiding newbie fan mistakes, and wank-proofing herself as much as possible.

How much of my fannish self do I reveal?

By the time Emma joins me in fandom, I’ll have amassed well over a decade of journal posts about my personal life and my beliefs as well as a body of writing that includes sexually explicit material and recs of fanworks that feature all sorts of sexual kinks as well as violence and other material she may find disturbing. I don’t anticipate locking down my journal to keep parts of it secret from her, so I imagine some frank conversations (or else OMG!MOM embarrassment) will ensue. I worry (as I imagine every parent has throughout history) that as she gets to know me better, Emma will be disappointed by what she learns, but I also hope that getting to know the mom behind the curtain will help us to become closer. I also will understand if she doesn’t want to associate with me openly in fandom; I get that commenting on mom’s porn could be kinda weird for a kid. LOL

And here’s the part where I just throw up my hands and go IDK

Do I just set her free into the wilds of fandom after educating her (coupled with periodic reinforcement and debriefing on what she might find there)? Or do I first find and vet stuff for her to read without encouraging her to search on her own? Do I offer to beta her fic and promote it on my journal, or is that way too helicoptery? Once we get to the part where she’s actually reading and posting stuff, I don’t know exactly how that’s going to work. I suspect I’ll have a much better idea when it happens than I do right now imagining a hypothetical future.

I’m not overly concerned about Emma’s exposure to sexually explicit material as a teen. I was reading graphic sex scenes in romance novels pretty much at the age she is now, and I don’t feel particularly damaged by the experience. LOL I am concerned about things like her encountering trolls on anon memes or being upset by some of the scenarios she might encounter in fic and not knowing how to process the complicated issues we often write about.

So, what do you guys think? Comments, questions, suggestions, and personal experience all welcome. I would particularly like to hear from parents who are already dealing with these issues or preparing to deal with them as we are and also from fans whose parents took an active role in shaping their fannish engagement (or on the flipside fans who had no familial involvement in their fannish development). I think I’m going to need all the help I can get! LOL

Comments

[the_rck]

My daughter turns ten this month. So far, she has no interest in watching or reading the things my husband and I do. Our interest seems to make her unwilling to have anything to do with certain things. I'd like to try her with Princess Tutu, and I hope to figure out how to get her to read the Kiki Strike books. She does act out Harry Potter stories and Percy Jackson stories with her stuffed animals, collaborating with friends to do it when she can.

She knows that I write fic, but I'm not sure she really understands what fic is. I haven't decided yet what to do if she ever expresses interest in what I write. I suppose it will depend on how old she is. I've got a decent chunk of G rated stuff that she could probably read now.

I'm very interested in meeting other fannish parents. Do you mind if I follow you?

[lunabee34]

Heeeee. So far, we've been really lucky in that expressing interest in most things ourselves has not resulted in Emma running away from them screaming in terror. The only exception has been music so far. I am an unabashed pop music fan, and while I'm happily singing away to One Direction (which is supposed to be the music of *her* demographic LOL), she's busy pulling faces in the back seat.

I am not familiar with Princess Tutu. I've seen people talking about it before but don't really know anything about it. Is it manga or a movie or both?

I also write a fair amount of gen that Emma could read right now. Until she specifically starts asking, though, I don't think I'm going to offer. It feels like a door that once opened will be forever and widely open LOL if that makes any sense.

Follow away! The more the merrier. Fair warning, this upcoming month will contain a flurry of Gateverse fandom posting, and then posting will likely dwindle for the forseeable future as our second child is due to be born at the end of June. :)

[nike]

Just jumping in to answer your question about Princess Tutu. It's an anime series (was never a manga) and it's basically a ballet in anime form, which does nothing to explain how awesome it is. Basically, you have these characters studying to be ballet dancers and unaware (at least at first) that they're essentially living out a ballet, complete with the monsters, weird magic, and dark spells you find in them.

These might explain it a bit (warning: spoilers): http://youtu.be/tHZqxecCukg and http://youtu.be/XjooRuCbNmY

Edited to add: Apparently there is a manga, but it's based on the anime rather than the other way around.

[lunabee34]

That sounds like a a lot of fun. Thanks for the info. I think we might have to check it out for Emma. :)

[the_rck]

Princess Tutu is an anime series about a duck who turns into a girl who turns into a magical princess. She's trying to find the shards of a prince's heart to restore him to himself. It's more complicated than that and has some meta commentary on stories. It's safe for kids but complex enough for adults to enjoy. I recommend it highly. I've watched both the dub and the sub. The sub is better, but there's nothing wrong with the dub.

I don't plan to show Cordelia my fic until and unless she starts asking. I suspect she won't ask because everything her parents do is kind of suspect and not cool.

Cordelia does have her own Netflix queue. She's enjoying picking things out to watch. She'll let us suggest things sometimes but mostly not. She likes superhero shows and hasn't minded us recommending things like Teen Titans and Justice League.

[lunabee34]

Emma loves subs. I think I am raising an elitist. LOL Thanks for the info; I think we'll give Princess Tutu a try.

[luxken27]

Well, I am not a parent, but I do know of a few parent-child (particularly mother-daughter) dichotomies floating around my various fandoms. I really think it depends on your personal relationship with each other as to how much space you'll want in fandom. A lot of kids are embarrassed to have a parent in fandom (behold the many, many secrets at fandom!secrets dealing with this), especially if its the same fandom. On the other hand, I have known of mothers-and-daughters who went to cons, cosplayed, and translated manga together. *shrug* I think what's most important is letting her explore organized online fandom in her own way. I definitely would steer clear of "vetting" things for her - I remember when my mother vetted my reading material; I could always tell what she thought of it before she said it, and it disappointed me when she thought I wasn't "mature enough" to handle certain (sexual) adult themes. And, well, I read it anyway, LOL - libraries are wonderful things! =)

I am solo in my family/greater friend group in being into online fandom. I've been on message boards since I was a teen, cultivating friendships my parents knew nothing about. I had my own computer in my own room. They trusted me, and I seriously appreciated that. I went out into the world beyond AOL (LOL, have I dated myself yet? :P) and, cognizant of privacy and not wanting my ISP to track my movements anymore than I wanted my parents to, I stuck to fairly safe niches. I came of age when NOBODY used any identifying details from their real lives, so the whole Facebook-real-name-thing just confuses and frightens me.

Anyway. My point is that you should let her do her own thing. If you know she's heading into wanky territory (like, say, reading any of the annals of history of the Inuyasha fandom), you might try to steer her away, but don't try to *lead* her, if that makes any sense. Finding your way in the online world is just a different sort of exploration of independence, IMO. The only way to learn is to do it yourself.

(And since I bagged on IY up there - the fandom has seriously mellowed the hell out these last few years. I have been surprised & pleased in dipping my toes back into those once-toxic waters.)

[lunabee34]

This is a very thoughtful reply. Thanks for sharing your experience with me. I've often wondered what it would be like to have grown up with the internet as a constant presence and both the positive and negative ways that might have changed my childhood and adolescence.

I do trust Emma, and I hope I haven't given the impression in this post that I intend to police her fannish interactions or to censor her reading. I was left pretty much to my own devices as far as reading goes, and I'm super stoked that her access to reading material is going to far outstrip my own. Emma can has a real library! And the internet! LOL

I'm not so much worried about her encountering sexual material online (although I know that right now she's not emotionally mature enough to understand or handle a lot of that material; I'm pregnant right now, and the conversation we had a year ago about periods and where babies come from was a pretty good indication that she's not only disinterested at this point in sex for the most part but also really weirded out by a lot of bodily processes). I was reading sexually explicit material at about her age or a little older, and I don't think it hurt me any.

I think what does worry me is that when I was a kid and reading things I wasn't supposed to, I was doing it by myself and not in this wider community where people might prey on me or where I might expose myself to potential dangers from *people*. I'm not worried about her encountering ideas; it's the people that give me pause, if that makes any sense. I think what I worry about most, to be honest, is cyberbullying and the like that generally occur outside of fandom and on platforms like Facebook where everyone is supposed to inhabit their real life identities rather than something happening to her in fandom. Also viruses on my computer. LOL We will definitely be having the virus talk.

[luxken27]

I've often wondered what it would be like to have grown up with the internet as a constant presence and both the positive and negative ways that might have changed my childhood and adolescence.

Well, I've had the internet for about half my life, and I guess I discovered it at the right time ;) My dad did introduce me to websites, etc, and he did limit my time that I was allowed to play (and I do mean play - I distinctly remember one of the first and only websites I was allowed to visit was Nickelodeon's, and I had a ball going through all of the episode guides for my various favorite TV shows, LOL). He also warned me about sharing personal details online, etc. but as I grew up, he trusted me to be online by myself and to not do anything to get myself into trouble, etc.

For me, the internet was a wonderful thing - coming from a small town with a very narrow world view was stifling for me, so I loved being able to meet and chat with people from all over the world. It facilitated some of my pre-fandom fandoms (like tennis - which gave me friends for life, LOL) and really made me a "citizen of the world," cheesy as that sounds :P But it was life-changing in the best sort of way ♥

I hope I haven't given the impression in this post that I intend to police her fannish interactions or to censor her reading.

You didn't, beyond it being an option. I've read your other responses here, and I definitely understand the concern about becoming a helicopter parent :) I think the best way to do this is to let her come to you with her excitement/gushing/etc. I, too, am weirded out by the idea of my family reading my fic - not because I'm ashamed of it, but because they have no understanding of the culture at all, and it would be too exhausting to explain :P I also agree with the person who said that there's little that turns teens off something faster than a parent showing too much enthusiasm about it - hence my suggestion to let her navigate the internet on her own.

I was doing it by myself and not in this wider community where people might prey on me or where I might expose myself to potential dangers from *people*. I'm not worried about her encountering ideas; it's the people that give me pause, if that makes any sense.

I understand this, but I also think you have to trust your kid - I know, I know, easier said than done ;) But if you've 'raised her right,' so to speak, she'll naturally gravitate towards people with similar interests. One of the ways that I protected myself as a teen on the internet was to lie about my age. The message board I was posting most frequently to as a fourteen-year-old was mostly inhabited by late teens/early twenties folks (it was a music board), and one of them told me that when I first started contributing, they thought I was a thirty-year-old gay man, LOL!! I engaged with them about our shared interest and always shielded my true age/gender, because who needs to know that to talk about stuff like music or stories? (Even now, I never give out my real birthdate or name or city or any of that stuff.) I also lurked on grown-up message boards. *shrug* I wanted to be accepted for my ideas, not for being a precocious kid engaging with people twice my age :P

I think what I worry about most, to be honest, is cyberbullying and the like that generally occur outside of fandom and on platforms like Facebook where everyone is supposed to inhabit their real life identities

That is, indeed, a whole different kettle of fish. To date myself again, I was around and had access to Facebook when it was invitation only - as in, you had to be enrolled at certain universities, which had to be accepted into the network. It was a walled garden, where it was much safer (in some respects) to share things like identifying info and class schedules and what dorm you lived in (can you even still share that stuff? IDK, I loathe FB). I wasn't even really into it then, because I already had an online presence, which I think is what a lot of these people who LOVE Facebook use it for. But that's an entirely different rant ;)

I see absolutely no need to have a Facebook or other 'real-name' public social media account, and it is very disconcerting to me that the generation behind me is so open and free with their info/pics/whatnot, so I can't really help you there - but if anything, fandom can be an insulated and safe space to explore your independence, because you can control the face that you put forward.

[lunabee34]

I am very relieved to read accounts from you and other commenters who had good experiences in fandom as adolescents. It does make me feel better to read that by and large most people get along just fine on their own.

I wish I had had access to the internet growing up because I came from a similar background--very rural, very limited. My world opened up in college because I was exposed to so many new things at once; I felt like a traveler to a different land or something. LOL

I think not revealing her age is a very good idea and one that will be part of the the privacy/keeping RL and fannish life separate lesson. I was already in my mid-twenties by the time I found online fandom, so I didn't have to worry about revealing my age online.

[gloriafan]

Very interesting stuff! I don't have any wee ones myself, but I've given quite a lot of thought to what I'd do if I am someday blessed with a fandom-inclined child (if I am still active in fandom by that time).

[lunabee34]

Thanks. :)

I think my generation, the one that straddles the world pre- and post-internet, will have the most trouble figuring out how to help our kids negotiate the online world because we didn't experience childhood on the web ourselves. I think a lot of this stuff will be more intuitive for the parents who have always had the internet in their lives.

[executrix]

Great essay, thanks!

I don't have kids but I have definitely seen references by other fans to their tween-age fanac, so I suspect you don't have a lot more years before you'll have to be setting policies. Unless, as luxken27 says, there'll be an "euww! PARENTS!" reaction.

[lunabee34]

Heeeee. I don't think I have much time to go either, but I do think it'll be a little while longer. Emma likes video games, and she likes TV, but she's still very much a kid kid who likes to run around outside and scream. LOL So far she hasn't exhibited a lot of the tweeny behaviors that I fully expected her to engage in by now, so who knows. I kind of suspect she's going to be a bit of a late bloomer. Her constant mantra is that she doesn't want to grow up and that she doesn't care about that lovey dovey stuff, which is fine by me. I'm cool with her embracing her childhood for as long as she wants.

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[opusculasedfera]

Disclaimer: obvously, I don't know your kid at all, we may be very, very different people, and I'm not actually entirely sure how old Emma is. These are just my observations in general.

I had vaguely fannish parents who never, ever discussed it with me, and honestly, I'd say their greatest gift to my fannish development was unfettered access to the internet from about age 12 and their complete lack of interest in my fannishness. I don't want to romanticise it too much, but it was really nice to be able to poke around online, and talk to people, and read things with sex and the kind of shitty overdramatic writing that seems AMAZING when you're 13, and have my parents know basically nothing about it. There are mistakes you won't be able to protect her from, and there's a good chance she'd rather you never knew about them.

This doesn't mean don't give her some advice on not giving out personal info, or avoiding serious wank, but newbs are always going to say something dumb at some point and it feels a lot better if you're saying it surrounded by equally inexperienced kids rather than where your mum and all her friends can see. I know she doesn't seem embarrassed to tell you stories now, but lots of kids get more self-conscious when puberty hits, and the concept of my parents having seen the horrible porn I tried to write at 16 thicks my blood with cold, particularly the bit where they would still know about it now, when I'm rather older and trying hard to forget its incredible terribleness. (This isn't modesty, it really was awful. Which is fine; it was a learning experience, but it would seem rather cruel for someone to bring it up now that I no longer think it well done.)

It's probably a good idea to let her know that you're around, but I wouldn't link her to your work unless she specifically asked. In fact, I wouldn't link her to anything unless she specifically asked, except maybe the most general of archives. If nothing else, there is little that will make your average teenager more deeply uninterested in an activity than their parents presenting it as something they're really into. (On a similar note, there might be advantages to linking her to meta about fannish etiquette rather than trying to explain it yourself.)

Again, your kid may be very different than I was at that age. But I think at least providing her with the opportunity to have that kind of freedom and privacy about her own fannishness, and to decide if she wants to tell you about what she's doing online, is valuable. The internet will probably present her with some things that make her sad or uncomfortable, so knowing she can come to you is great, but I don't think it's terrible enough on the whole that it needs to be vetted in advance.

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[lunabee34]

Emma is ten and a half and in the fourth grade. :)

I think one of the hardest things to figure out as a parent is how to walk the line between unfettered access and the iron fist of doom. LOL Watching your kids make mistakes which is a totally necessary part of the learning and growing process is very, very hard and it hurts. I understand why people coddle their children too much and how easy the path to helicopter parent is to tread even though I try my best to restrain myself.

Like I said to someone else upthread: I do trust Emma, and I hope I haven't given the impression in this post that I intend to police her fannish interactions or to censor her reading. I was left pretty much to my own devices as far as reading goes, and I'm super stoked that her access to reading material is going to far outstrip my own. Emma can has a real library! And the internet! LOL

I'm not so much worried about her encountering sexual material online (although I know that right now she's not emotionally mature enough to understand or handle a lot of that material; I'm pregnant right now, and the conversation we had a year ago about periods and where babies come from was a pretty good indication that she's not only disinterested at this point in sex for the most part but also really weirded out by a lot of bodily processes). I was reading sexually explicit material at about her age or a little older, and I don't think it hurt me any.

I think what does worry me is that when I was a kid and reading things I wasn't supposed to, I was doing it by myself and not in this wider community where people might prey on me or where I might expose myself to potential dangers from *people*. I'm not worried about her encountering ideas; it's the people that give me pause, if that makes any sense. I think what I worry about most, to be honest, is cyberbullying and the like that generally occur outside of fandom and on platforms like Facebook where everyone is supposed to inhabit their real life identities rather than something happening to her in fandom.

I think you are right that she might be very embarrassed by me in fandom, and I'm totally cool with not interacting with her in fandom if she doesn't want to. LOL I will not force my fancrone self upon her unasked for.

I do intend at least at first (especially the younger she is), though, to do some random monitoring of what she's doing online just to make sure she's keeping herself safe. I don't intend to abuse that, though, and I imagine it will be something I phase out once she's proved that she gets that she shouldn't post her name or her address or what-have-you.

Also, thanks for sharing your experiences with me. :)

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[opusculasedfera]

Ah, well, I can understand why you're a lot more concerned if she's still only 10. :)

I don't mean to sound like I thought you planned to censor her. I just thought I might point out that sometimes the kind of observation that's only about making sure she isn't letting her real name/location/age slip can feel to prickly tweens/teens like you're observing all of their activities, even if you really truly don't care at all about what she's reading or writing. I suspect the point where you phase out that kind of monitoring (and she's making faces at you like "what, give out my name online? Do you think I'm DUMB, mom?") will come sooner than you think. ;)

Plus I'm not entirely sure that it's that easy to tell if someone is being bullied online via spotchecks, to be honest, and for some people the tradeoff between that slim chance and the appeal of not feeling monitored (even if the computer is shared and in a generally public space) would be very much worth it.

I'm sure you will make things work; this is just another perspective (especially as I don't know how coherent she'll be on the subject of exactly what she wants out of privacy in a couple of years. I know I wasn't at that age, lol, even if I did have very strong opinions on the subject.)

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[lunabee34]

Well, part of me probably would like to censor her! The very bad part of me that also wants to wrap her in cotton wool and punish anyone who looks at her cross-eyed. The part of me that alas I must quash. LOL You didn't sound like you thought I would censor her so much as I realized my post itself might sound like that, so no worries at all.

I think you are right too about not always being able to tell via spot checks if someone is being bullied. :( I think in my ideal world, Emma will never get a Facebook but make a DW account instead and merrily post Inuyasha fic for the next forty years. :)

I think this is so hard for me to wrap my head around because when I was a kid, privacy was about my physical diary or a folder full of looseleaf paper or whatever, and I knew that my parents would never read my diary or go into my desk and rifle through my papers. That kind of privacy was so very important to me, and I would never dream of invading Emma's privacy that way. But at the same time, my parents also knew that nobody could reblog my intense and super embarrassing crush on Joseph (I wrote songs about this boy. And sang them. Aloud. To the night sky. Talk about embarrassing) to make fun of me. But I also get that the internet is my daughter's generation's paper diary.

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[opusculasedfera]

Haha, I feel you, I sometimes feel like that about my little sister, who is now very much a legal adult and not even that much younger than me!

Well, if she's 10, there's a chance that Facebook will have died before she ever manages to have one? :)

I think the thing to remember is that mostly people do not care about other people's intense and embarrassing crushes, especially if they do not know any of the people involved. It's like when you were singing your (super adorable sounding!) crush-songs. Presumably people could have heard them if they wanted to or happened to be around, but no one really cared to, therefore it felt private. Having your parents listen, on the other hand, would have felt much, much worse because they actually would have cared that you had a crush, even if they didn't disapprove or mock you or anything. Which is why the only really truly important thing to teach her is to separate her rl information from her online presence, because otherwise you are going to end up having to check on her online crush-song equivalent because that's where the identifying data will be, and that won't be fun for either of you.

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[lunabee34]

I completely agree with your assessment of the truly important thing, and I think I can manage to teach her that effectively, especially if I do so from the very beginning.

:)

[cathexys]

As you may know I have one fannish and one nonfannish kid. Both of them got their pseud ID at the same time as they got their RL one. In fact, I created two gmail accounts for them on the same day. Thing I learned was that I spent so much time teaching them how not to expose themselves online that I forgot to make sure to warn them about the opposite. Lets just say that they learned after we had to blast their computer bc it was so virus ridden.

Both use their fannish personas for online gaming and when they have created accounts (Instagram, for example) they have been good about limiting info.

As for letting them see my fannish self. They know its in the same realm as politics and religion. We don't talk about it outside the house.

Fannish one just got an AO3 account and we had a long conversation about what to read and to take warnings seriously. I don't control his Internet use but we have talked about the difference between text and images, between reality and fantasy etc. I don't want to read his fanfic and I'd prefer he stay away from my fan works. Mostly that's achieved by different fandoms though.

We watch a few things as a family ( Sherlock, DW) and they watch a few more shows with me (SPN, Suits, Haven, teen wolf though they mock me mercilessly :). I put the limit at sex cum violence, I.e. I watched QAF with older one when he asked to see it, but True Blood is still off the table. We are debating Games of Thrones right now but I think he may be old enough. (You are old enough to get a learner's permit, you are old enough to see kindergarten age kids suckle their mother's breasts??? :)

Anyway, every child is different and even between my two i need different rules and worry about different things.

[lunabee34]

OMG, yes! We will be having the virus talk. Multiple times. LOL

You bring up a good point that I didn't mention in this essay, but we'll have that rule as well about not talking about fandom outside the house. The last thing I need is to deal with some uber-conservative teacher calling me in for a conference or something like that. Once she has access to my online identity, she'll be partially responsible for protecting that identity as well, and I definitely want to impress the importance of that on her.

At this point, so much of what is going to happen in the future is hypothetical that I don't know if Emma will even want me to read her fanfic (she does now, but we both know that what she wants at 10 and what she wants at 14 is likely to be drastically different LOL) or read mine or whatever. I don't think from where I'm sitting now that I'd have a problem with her reading my fanfic, but I might feel differently when that's an actual possibility rather than a hypothetical.

[karmageddon]

Thanks for this thought-provoking essay. Love the pictures. I love the Jedi Mom sensibility.

[lunabee34]

I'm glad it was thought-provoking. :)

The Jedi Mom game provided me much amusement once she told me about it. LOL Why, yes, you can be a kick-ass fighter of evil droids AND a mommy at the same time.

[starry_starrrz]

Hey, I'm here from the month of meta comm ~

This post was really thought provoking for me. I'm not a parent (and not expecting to be one any time in the near future!), but it really made me look at the relationship I had with my parents in regards to fandom.

I discovered online fandom at about the age your daughter is now, c. 2000 / 2001. My dad was (and still is) a big sci-fi and fantasy geek, but I came into fandom through anime and only moved onto western media later, no doubt scarring my dad for life with my boundless enthusiasm for talking in detail about Star Trek slash... Neither of my parents have ever been into online fandom, or aspects like fanfiction, but they made an effort to ask about it for my sake. They'd ask me to explain fannish terms for example, or what I was writing about. Whether I answered them was a different issue, but it was nice to know they were interested.

My parents kept the computer in the living room, partly for supervision, partly because it was new and shiny back then, though I still managed to read a lot of stuff that wasn't age appropriate. I think the key thing was that this made me feel like I wasn't being supervised, even though I was. They gave me a lot of rope, and let me come to them with questions/concerns which they always tried to answer, no matter how random or embarrassing! Obviously you need to set your own boundaries for your daughter, but being allowed that bit of freedom made me feel like I was able to make my own decisions about what I did and didn't like.

I guess my advice would be to let her decide how comfortable she is with sharing fandom with you, and in what ways. Personal anecdote: I remember my parents asking to read my fic but I was too embarrassed to give it to them, though I was happy to give them the username of my fandom journal. I needed that distance, and it meant a lot that they respected that.

[lunabee34]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Your parents sound like they were very nurturing and that they did a good job of setting reasonable boundaries for you while letting you explore and figure out some things on your own. That's pretty much the balance I'm looking to create for Emma.

I think the advice in your last paragraph is very good. I want to give her the tools on the front end so that she can enjoy herself and navigate fandom with greater ease than someone finding it on her own, but I also want her to be free to enjoy it on her own terms.

At least in the beginning, having the computer in shared space is pretty non-negotiable for me. That doesn't mean I'll be hovering over her shoulder every five seconds or watching what she's doing, but I personally do not think it's good for kids to be alone in their rooms for hours on electronic devices, especially at bedtime. YMMV on that one, and I am not criticizing anyone else's parenting choices here, but Emma doesn't have a TV in her room either, and she doesn't have a phone or an ipad. I think because she doesn't have all those distractions, she's always been an excellent sleeper. One of my big soapboxes is how kids need tons of sleep, and a lot of them don't get it; IMHO, a lot of behavior problems and other issues that kids have actually stem from too little sleep. I am digressing WAAAAAAAAY away from the point here, so I'll just leave it there. Sleep good. Midnight on computer for pre-teen bad. LOL

[hebethen]

I guess it would depend on the dynamics of the particular parent-child relationship, as to the depth of the involvement in each other's individual fannish activities. You hear of (grown) daughters talking sex toys with their moms and generally being full-disclosure confidantes, f'rex, as well as the more usual "scarred 4 lyfe!!!1" stories and the stereotypical secretive teen or aloof young adult.

My parents weren't fannish at all, so I pretty much went it alone -- not that I would have necessarily involved them had they been, since I've always been rather private. I don't think I suffered for the lack of guidance, though. Literally years of lurking -- I didn't actually wade in until the latter part of high school. Sure there was drama -- isn't there always? -- but nothing beyond my coping abilities, or (eventually) the comfort of my fannish friends.

[lunabee34]

I am very comforted reading the comments by you and others that finding your way in fandom without any guidance was a good experience for you.

It's so hard to predict right now where Emma will fall on the continuum of parent-child dynamics; I think I'm hoping for somewhere nicely in the middle.

(also, I love your icon; so beautiful)

[metanewsmods]

Hi, can I link this at metanews?

[lunabee34]

Certainly. :) And you have my permission to link to any of my posts in future.

[metanewsmods]

Thank you, shall add you to the blanket permissions list.

[aphrodite_mine]

Here via metanews.

Lovely essay! I'm reminded of my relationship with my sister and fandom. When I was new in online fandom, and my sister was very young, our parents divorced. Since my mom was very preoccupied with my mentally ill brother and new challenges like the budget and working, a lot of the co-parenting fell to me.

I did my part to 'raise' my sister into fandom, and while she isn't particularly interested in participating in it now, she was for awhile! I had similar limits as you do -- we could watch Alias together, but only the episodes that weren't too sexy. Violence was okay, but I turned anything scary off. I talked constantly about the things that interested me, and as younger sisters are prone to do to their older sisters, she picked up on a few and tried hard to be interested in the same things.

In middle school, she was into LoTR. As this wasn't one of my fandoms, I teased her terribly about it, and I think that had a lasting effect, to some extent. She's had friends that were fannish in the same vein that I was/am, but never quite got there herself on the same level she had once, dreaming of Frodo.

In any case, once she was in high school and had more exposure to a lot of things, I liked to have her request ideas for fanfics -- including same sex and even incest pairings. I didn't really have a concept that other people didn't discuss that sort of things with their sister, and she's assured me it didn't bother her. She found it amusing, still does. For a long period, she read everything I wrote -- no matter the rating. She doesn't any more, but would, happily, if I asked her to.

The one or two times she DID write fanfic of her own, she was TERRIFIED of having me read it because I had been at it for such a long time, and she had that bizarre foresight that very few n00bs do -- that her writing had an unpracticed edge. (Wish I'd had that sense when I started out!) She never wanted to post it, even after I assured her it was lovely, and has only briefly maintained any sort of internet presence other than her personal Facebook -- mostly because I urged her to get on LJ and be my FRIEND! Hah.

While it sounds like there isn't much chance of your daughter NOT being fannish, there's also the possibility that the interest will fade -- or that her fannish participation will be completely different from yours! From what you've written, it doesn't sound like you're the sort to *gently push* Emma in any sort of direction, but -- while you keep diligent and aware, consider what she isn't asking for.

I wonder, sometimes, what my sister might have gotten herself into if I hadn't been so eager to include her in my online life. Who knows -- she might be in fandom now, of her own volition. (And that shouldn't be read cryptically...!)

[lunabee34]

I'm out of town until tommorrow but will answer your lovely reply when i return.

[lunabee34]

Thanks for your patience! We took a quick vacation this weekend. :)

I think your relationship with your sister sounds really special and close. I imagine she was very happy to have your love and support during what sounds like a very difficult time for your family.

I think your warning about shepherding Emma in any particular direction is a very apt one. While I want to keep her safe and help her if she wants it, I also don't want to quash any love she has for anything or keep her from going in some direction that I wouldn't necessarily choose.

Thanks for sharing your experience with me!

[aphrodite_mine]

Thanks for your reply! I realized re-reading this how wordy I got! :D Apparently I like talking about my sister and fandom. :D

[lunabee34]

Wordy is good! I like wordy!