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Does the 6-year-old boy want to be seen reading "Freakonomics" (the book) on Freakonomics (the blog)?

It is a cute picture, especially if you love kids reading, but:

My husband is K.C. and the kids are Jacob (10) and Jared (6). We live in Connecticut, and K.C. commutes into New York City to work as a portfolio manager. I am a stay-at-home mom with a medical degree.

A few months ago, I thought Jacob would like reading Freakonomics, which he thoroughly enjoyed. After he finished that, I thought he might also like Malcolm Gladwell, so he is now in the midst of Blink.

Our copy of Freakonomics was lying around the house, so Jared started to get interested as well...

I have to share a funny story with you. When I told/asked Jacob about being included in your blog, at first he seemed pleased, but then a slight cloud passed over his face, and he said, ?Well, I don?t want to be recognized ?? Whereupon my husband reassured him that he would not be followed by paparazzi.

First commenter, one "sunshine" says:

Weird, a child asked not to have his photo put up on a highly-read Web page and both the parent and the editor refused to honor his request. Nonconsensual blogging. This concern may seem like a trivial joke, but look for this issue to increase in coming years.

Is sunshine's criticism apt? Or can we see from the context that the child imagined that once his photograph appeared on a popular blog, strangers would accost him in the street?

And more generally, I do wonder about putting pictures of children up on line. People love to see pictures of kids. It's a nice, happy part of life to see children. Yet some people seem to think that children should not be seen -- that it's dangerous for their children to be visible at all.

On the subject of children reading: I can see why "Freakonomics" and "Blink" make excellent reading for the young. We're so intent on foisting fiction on children, but there is a lot of nonfiction out their to stir their thinking.

Full post as published by Althouse on December 05, 2008 (boomark / email).