When you start a blog, the first thing that every blogger has to think about is whether or not you are going to tell your family about your blog, because not all bloggers do, and a lot of people don’t. Blogging about disability can be stressful because people who blog about health get more trolls than those who do, but it can be even more stressful when your family reads your blog. I chose to tell my family about my blog, and my family is supportive of my content, but I would be lying if I said my family didn’t affect the type of content I create. You have to think about a lot more things when your family reads your blog because you always want to create content that isn’t going to offend people in your family. Blogging about disability when non-disabled family members read your blog is hard because non-disabled people do not see things like I do, but it’s even harder when your friends are reading it and may be judging you. Why not make it easier and not tell my family about my blog? In this post, I am going to share why I told my family about my blog even though there are more challenges.
My family sometimes can be so ableist- My family is supportive of my disability but because no one in my family has a physical disability or any disability at all sometimes people can be so ableist and not even know it. Most times, it’s not intentional, and people don’t realize their comment was ableist because non-disabled people have a harder time recognizing ableism than disabled people do. I told my family about my blog because people within my own family can be so ableist, and sometimes I am negatively impacted by their ableism. I can’t force people to take the advice provided in blog posts and apply it in their lives, but I can give people the tools they need to support disabled people so they are more aware. Disabled people are sometimes afraid to share their opinions within their own family because sometimes people respond with an ableist comment, and I don’t always have the mental capacity to deal with it. I think I will always deal with some level of ableism in my own family because non-disabled people don’t recognize it as easily, but I do hope my blog gives my family a little bit more understanding.
It would be hard to hide my blog– My family sometimes misinterprets things on my blog and there is nothing I can do to change that because you are never going to fully understand a disability you have never experienced. Some bloggers choose not to tell their families about their blogs, and I can understand why people don’t tell their families, but because I live at home, it would be more difficult to hide my blog from my family than people think. Blogging requires you to spend hours a day typing on a computer, and it would be more difficult to lie about my blogging than it would be to tell the truth. I think the only way I could successfully blog without anyone in my family knowing was if I had a free blog and wrote posts late at night. I would never want to write posts at 2 a.m. because I am more motivated during the day, and it’s just easier to tell people what I am doing. I never had an interest in secretly blogging because no one in my family has ever given me a reason not to want to share it with them.
Teach my family how to make my life easier- My family knows more about my disability than most people, but even though you know a disabled person, that does not make you an expert. I told my family about my blog to help people understand how my disability affects me, because some people in my family make it very obvious that they know very little about my disability. I use my platforms to help make my family more aware of the challenges I face because you can’t expect non-disabled people to be aware of every barrier they unintentionally create. I think blogging about my disability can help my family learn what they can do to make my life easier because what you think is accessible for disabled people isn’t always as accessible as you think. It is much easier to educate my family about my disability through my blog because I don’t have to constantly tell people they are making my life harder, and I can just write a post about it.
I can grow my blog quicker– I know that not every single person in my family reads my blog, and that is okay because I would rather have less readers who enjoy my content than more who only read it because they feel obligated. My family is quite large and because of that, I have been able to gain a large amount of readers at a quicker rate than I would if my family didn’t know about my blog. Family members will never say anything negative about my blog, and I will probably never know people’s true opinions, but because of my family, I have grown at a slightly quicker rate. The more people you tell about your blog, the faster it grows, and I just wouldn’t be reaching as many people without my family.
Blogging when your family reads your blog is more stressful because you are always concerned with what people think of your blog. When you write about disability, it is hard to blog when your family reads your content, but I think it is important because the only way people are going to know how to make a disabled person’s life easier is if they consume content from disabled creators. My family might be able to give you a better science lesson on Spina Bifida than I will ever be able to, but my family will never be able to relate to the challenges I face every single day. I struggle with helping my family understand my perspective and I think I always will but it’s important we talk about disability in our own families because people who care about us want nothing else than to see us succeed. It is not a requirement to tell your family about your blog, and I completely understand why people hide their blogs from their families. I told mine because my family needs to be educated just as much as a total stranger, if not more. Have you told your family about your blog? If you liked this post, please leave a comment below and share it with your friends.
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