By Maren John

I write about family, speech and writing industry


Three kids paused, watching a man, a note book on his laps
Manu Nathaniel

News sites want to publish something everyone can trust. For this reason, their managers welcome personal essayists in the name of opinion writers or columnists even with money to entertain, educate and inform readers.

On several occasions, I read such writers online publishing almost everything about their children's habits and preferences. One day, when one of them said her son said ‘he hates Donald trump’, I asked myself two questions: did she ask for the consent of her son before publishing him on this media? And did she ask herself whether her son would like what she published now when he becomes adult?

Generally, whether the answers to those questions are all yeses, the woman is wrong to publish that about her child who wasn't mature enough to understand reputation let alone to guard it.

However, for wisdom sake, I wasn’t in a hurry to say ‘no'. I considered her background first instead. As written in her bio, she was a contributing writer on a big media site that would not tolerate such opinion writers who can tell the world who they are not. And she had contributed more than 15 articles on this platform alone.

As it finally turned out, this American woman was a highly discipline and respected writer who should be thinking of the future.