Eat Your Vegetables, and Don't Forget to Tweet

As a teenager, Jessica Wilson rebelled against her parents. She refused to tweet.

Parents are always looking for ways to position their children for success, from piano lessons to Mandarin immersion. In the Wilson household, that means encouraging the kids to express themselves on the Internet. Unlike parents who struggle to limit kids' computer use, Fred and Joanne Wilson want their kids to be comfortable with the latest in technology.

Courtesy of Wilson family

The parents and kids publish a combined nine blogs. They bring a duffle bag on family trips just to carry all the cords, adapters and batteries for their electronic devices. Mr. and Ms. Wilson, both 49, write almost every day on their blogs, which cover everything from financing start-ups and music (his) to entrepreneurs, family and the key to cooking a prime rib (hers).

Jessica, 20, and Emily, 18, have two blogs each; Joshua, 15, has one, plus two Xboxes. When Josh expressed an interest in building websites, his mom hired a graduate student to tutor him in coding.

Ms. Wilson, an avid cook, photographs most family meals for her "Gotham Gal" blog. "If you try to take a bite of your appetizer before she's taken a picture, you hear her say, 'Wait wait wait wait,' and she'll make you put it back," Josh says.

At times, the kids have resisted the push online. Mr. Wilson, a New York City venture capitalist whose company invested in Twitter, wanted Jessica to be a nimble tweeter. "I would tell her that it was going to be the next big thing," says Mr. Wilson.

Jessica refused to take part. "It was a rebellious thing," she says.

But now, as an aspiring photographer, Jessica sees a benefit to having her dad promote her work to his 173,000 followers.

The Wilsons are an extreme case of connectedness, but maybe not for long. Americans' media consumption keeps increasing, with smartphone ownership and social-network use growing fast. According to a study being released Thursday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 47% of American adults say they use at least one social-networking site.

The Wilson parents blog the old-fashioned way -- with words -- while the kids fill sites like Tumblr with photos. Stitch it all together, and you get a new-media portrait of a close-knit and connected family.

Courtesy of Wilson family

Fred, 49

Mr. Wilson is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures, a venture-capital firm that has invested in companies such as Tumblr, Foursquare, Zynga and Etsy. He is on the board of directors at Twitter and Etsy.

His best-known blog is avc.com, which attracts about 250,000 unique visitors a month. While his focus is the technology industry, he sometimes mentions his kids: "For years I tried to get my girls to shop on Etsy. They just didn't get it. Then last spring my daughter came home from college and told me that she was 'addicted to Etsy.' ... Yesss."

In 2005, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson started a family podcast called "Positively Tenth Street." Sunday nights, the clan sat at the kitchen counter taking turns talking about their week and selecting songs. (In one episode, the family discussed power-cord compatibility and played "Waiting for the World to Change" by John Mayer.) Episodes were posted to a website the Wilsons set up, and some aired on a radio station in San Francisco.

"After a year and a half, my sisters said, 'We're done,' " Josh remembers.

"It's actually embarrassing," Emily says.

These days, Mr. Wilson occasionally posts links to his daughters' photograph blogs. He points out that in a Google search on "Jessica Wilson," -- a fairly common name -- his daughter's website is the top link. "Having her online portfolio first on Google could be very valuable to her," he says.

[More from WSJ.com: The Terrifying Truth About New Technology]

Mr. Wilson is glad she has come around to Twitter. "In social media there is a tension between a desire for privacy and a desire for attention," her father says.

Jessica sometimes asks her dad to "reblog" photos she is particularly proud of.

"I use the same rule with my kids and entrepreneurs: If I think the thing they want me to [post] is consistent with the online brand I've developed and the audience I've cultivated, then I'll do it," he says.

Courtesy of Wilson family/Emily Wilson

Joanne, 49

Ms. Wilson started blogging in 2003, wanting to preserve a professional identity after she stopped working. She invests for the family in online properties and promotes women entrepreneurs, both on her blog and as co-chair of New York University's Women's Entrepreneur Festival.

"Gotham Gal" is a window on New York's tech scene, complete with downtown restaurants and adventurous travels abroad. But it's also very domestic. Last week, she wrote about a meal the family had to celebrate Emily's high school graduation.

"If she blogs a picture of me I don't like, I get very mad," says Jessica.

Ms. Wilson says she cares very much about her family's privacy. "I know fundamentally where you draw the line," she says. "There are plenty of things that happen that you just don't go there."

[More from WSJ.com: A Smart 3-D Phone]

Ms. Wilson says she has regretted only one post: She criticized another school mom for being overbearing. Ms. Wilson never identified the other woman, but when Ms. Wilson ran into her while getting her hair cut, the woman said she knew it was her. "Lesson learned," Ms. Wilson says.

People who hang out with the Wilsons a lot find their way onto Gotham Gal. When Emily's friend, Lizzie Noonan, joined the family on a trip, she was featured on the blog. "One of Josh's friends was like, 'I'm on it more times than you,' " Lizzie says. She replied, "'I'm just getting started!"

Jessica, 20

Jessica wants to be a photographer. She refers to one of her websites as her "portfolio," where she posts a few select images and her contact information. She blogs other photos she has taken, as well as images she has seen online, on Tumblr. She posts snapshots -- a lot of them -- on Facebook.

She knows her parents look at all of her sites and social-media pages. "I'm so active on Facebook, I don't think they can keep up with it," she says.

Jessica, a junior at Wesleyan University who will spend the next semester studying in Cape Town, South Africa, says she doesn't like her parents to write about her.

But she knows the value of having them promote her work. Her father reblogged her first-ever Tumblr post and within a few hours, 14,000 other people had reblogged it from his page, and 2,100 people had opted to follow Jessica's Tumblr blog.

She says she finally joined Twitter after a family dinner in which her mom cited a funny tweet sent out by one of Jessica's college friends. "I was like, 'Hey, he is my friend!' "

Emily, 18

Emily, who will be a freshman at Wesleyan this fall, also loves photography. She maintains two blogs on Tumblr. One is for photographs she has taken of friends, family or street scenes -- images she showcases as her work.

On the other, she posts photos, videos or songs that she thinks are cool, like a photo she reblogged from another person's Tumblr page of a yellow car surrounded by the purple petals shed from a flowering tree. On Facebook, she posts personal snapshots.

Recently, Ms. Wilson posted on "Gotham Gal" about her daughter. "Emily is baking up a storm," Ms. Wilson wrote, sharing with readers the recipe for banana coconut cookies her daughter had prepared.

This upset Emily. "I want to be able to do the things I do in my life, then if I want to share it, I can, it's my choice," she says.

Josh, 15

Josh is more a gamer than a social networker (his 1,000 Facebook friends notwithstanding). He used to play a lot of Zynga games on Facebook but has refocused on Xbox.

His dad often seeks his son's opinion on new websites and apps. "If I'm not busy, I try to do it within a day or two," he says. In the fall, he will enter his sophomore year of high school. He is an editor and reporter for the school newspaper.

Josh follows his favorite pro sports players on Twitter. On the rare occasions when Josh tweets, he tries to rib his parents. Last fall, he wrote, "With @fredwilson and @thegothamgal look for a man in a white and black striped collared shirt @fredwilson, find him you get a hug."

"My parents love it when I do stuff like that," he says.

For years, Josh has been asking his parents to buy a television for his room. But Mr. and Ms. Wilson have one limit on technology: no TVs in the bedrooms. "They don't want us in our rooms glued to the TV," Josh says. Of course, Josh notes that he can download programs to his laptop.

He says he ignores his mom's blog. "I try to refrain from reading her blog because then we don't have anything to talk about," he says.

Schwarzenegger revamps his image once again

LOS ANGELES - For 35 years, Arnold Schwarzenegger has been carefully crafting his public image, from Austrian bodybuilder and international action star to family man and Republican politician.

Now, with his split from Maria Shriver and revelations that he fathered a child with a member of his housekeeping staff, where does Schwarzenegger go from here? Can he have a future either in politics or film, and how does he once again reshape his image, especially in the eyes of female fans?

"His biggest problem as an action star has nothing to do with being an adulterer. It has to do with being 63 years old and physically wrecked — unless they're going to make `Terminator 6: The Golden Years,'" said David Leibowitz, a Phoenix-based public relations and crisis communications consultant. "The love child is almost the least of his worries."

For decades, though, Schwarzenegger was the safest of box-office bets, with his bulging, muscular physique and his quippy, punny one-liners. The "Terminator" movies alone have made more than $1 billion worldwide — most of that outside the United States.

"For me, he has never been a serious action star, but rather a sort of parody of himself," said Ali Arikan, chief film critic for the Turkish website Dipnot.tv and Roger Ebert contributor. "He had that wink in his eye even in earlier, more somber stuff like `Conan the Barbarian.' In fact, when he tried to be more serious, as with 1999's turgid `End of Days,' it was risible: nothing more hilarious than seeing Arnie `act!' So, he's basically been this goofy clown, shrewd and with great intelligence about his career, but a clown nonetheless."

Shrewd indeed. Around the movie work, this "clown" began adding some serious yet varied cred to the script, including roles as President Ronald Reagan's fitness guru, a campaigner for George W. Bush, and a founding backer with Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore in the Planet Hollywood restaurant chain.

Then, as Schwarzenegger's movie glory days began waning, he revamped his image again and became the improbable governor of California in a 2003 recall election.

Having a Kennedy heiress by his side certainly didn't hurt, despite the couple's disparate political leanings and even through claims that Schwarzenegger had groped other women. As former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown once put it, "Maria has been much more of a benefit to Arnold than Arnold has been to Maria."

Schwarzenegger often said being governor was the best job in the world, one he would have enjoyed holding longer had there not been term limits.

While in office, his highly choreographed, stage-managed appearances often seemed more like Hollywood productions than political forums. With Gov. Schwarzenegger, opportunities for image enhancement were seldom missed.

There was even talk about repealing the citizenship law to allow Schwarzenegger to run for president.

But his standing with voters was rocky throughout his governorship as the political neophyte sought to figure out where he stood on a host of divisive issues. Schwarzenegger's approval ratings plummeted during the 2005 special election in which he placed several conservative measures on the ballot, all of which voters resoundingly rejected. With Shriver's help, he apologized and reinvented himself once more as a political moderate, winning easy re-election in 2006.

During his second term, Schwarzenegger made bi-partisan friendships in the state Legislature and after signing legislation to restrict California's greenhouse gas emissions, he became a leader in the green energy cause.

But he was elected on a promise to fix California's chronic budget woes, and despite his best efforts, he soon gave in to the gimmickry and maneuvering that have been hallmarks of budget deal-making in Sacramento. He was seen as largely failing to accomplish his mandate, and his approval rating fell to 25 percent as he left office in 2010.

Lately, he's been jet-setting with the likes of "Terminator" director James Cameron and announcing he's ready to re-launch his acting career. But following his separation from Shriver after 25 years of marriage and the damaging baby revelations, he says he's putting those plans on hold.

As the owner of the Carolina Cinemas chain of movie theaters, Bill Banowsky sees Schwarzenegger making a comeback eventually — but only as an action star.

"I'd feel great about it if he's playing a `Terminator' role, if he's playing a role in a big action movie. I think he's going to do very well," said Banowsky, who also founded the independent distributor Magnolia Pictures. "If he comes out with a romantic comedy as a way to get back in, that would be really challenging for him."

And Arikan of the Turkish website suspects Schwarzenegger still has a future as a global star, despite his age.

"The international markets thrive on stars and cling onto them. Just look at the international numbers of `The Tourist' versus the U.S. ones," he said. "He could churn out action films every few years and expect the equivalent numbers that he got during the latter part of his career, like `The 6th Day' or `Eraser.' But he could never again soar the heights he once did with `T2' or `True Lies,' either nationally or internationally."

For now, though, it's wise for Schwarzenegger to apologize, lay low and focus on his family, which includes his four children with Shriver, said Melanie Ofenloch, a Dallas-based executive vice president at the global public relations firm Weber Shandwick. But it may not be enough. Part of why this transgression seems so appalling to women may be because Shriver herself has devoted so much of her life to championing women's issues: "I think they're going to have that mentality of: `How dare he?'"

"He's going to need to continue to show remorse. He's going to have to be honest about what's going on. If there's more to be found, then that's going to make it even more difficult," Ofenloch said. "But we are a society that's willing to give people a second chance."

Yet reaching out to women's groups is exactly the wrong thing to do, said Leibowitz, the Phoenix PR consultant.

"We live in a cynical age. People have gotten used to the idea that the celebrity who gets busted for DUI makes a huge contribution to Mothers Against Drunk Driving or the celebrity caught dog fighting does community service with the Humane Society," he said.

"If you take care of the personal first, the professional will follow," Leibowitz added. "If Arnold Schwarzenegger is able to mend his relationship with Maria Shriver and with his children, we'll see that in public. Women, y'all are really smart, you'll figure it out. It's a gut instinct thing."

Family inherits fortune generations later

Want to avoid raising spoiled kids?

Consider the Wellington Burt School of Wealthy Parenting.

Wellington R. Burt was a rich timber baron from Saginaw, Mich. He died in 1919 with a multimillion-dollar fortune -- one of America's largest at the time.

© The Saginaw News/AP

Wellington R. Burt

Yet rather than risk messing up his kids lives with a huge inheritance, he created an unusual will.

He stated that his fortune would be distributed to the family -- but only 21 years after his grandchildren's death.

[More from WSJ.com: Avoiding Stumbles With 'Living' Trusts]

His children and grandchildren weren't entirely deprived. Burt gave his "favorite son" $30,000 a year but the rest of his children got allowances roughly equal to those he gave his cook and chauffeur, according to the Saginaw News.

"I'm pretty sure he didn't like his family back then," said Christina Cameron, an heir and a great-great-great grandchild of Burt's.

Now that it's 21 years since the death of the last grandchild, the fortune is finally being turned over to Cameron and 11 others, including three great-grandchildren, seven great-great grandchildren and another great-great-great grandchild. The fortune is valued at more than $100 million. (She'll get a little more than $2.6 million, since those further up the family tree get more under a master agreement).

[More from WSJ.com: How to Help Grandkids]

Saginaw County Chief Probate Judge Patrick McGraw said the estate is "one of the most complicated research projects" he's faced in his 12-year career in Saginaw.

Of course, skipping a generation is not unusual among rich parents who want to send a message to their kids (but somehow not their grandkids). Generation-skipping trusts and other estate-planning structures have been around for ages.

[More from WSJ.com: Is Donating to Charity Still OK?]

But Burt's will takes kid-skipping to a new, almost punitive level. Who knows, maybe his kids and grand-kids were better off for the lack of inheritance, or maybe the money would have allowed them to lead fuller, happier lives. We'll never know. It would be interesting to compare the lives of his new heirs with those who were shut out.

What do you think of Burt's School of Parenting?