My maternal instinct is switched to overload which makes me a sucker for other people’s babies and toddlers (I‘m smart enough to know that it is easier to ooh and ahh over someone else’s kids who you just see in short spurts). In fact, I’ve found recently, it’s even easier to get sentimental and mushy over kids in TV ads and YouTube videos, plus there is the added benefit of volume control and the off button.
And, as you will know, there is no shortage of jaw-achingly cute toddlers being made into viral YouTube wonders if a person wanted to deal with their maternal instinct online. Just yesterday this clip popped into my Facebook feed.
First let’s get this out of the way – she’s damn cute and her little wobbly, tear-filled responses make me want to pick her up, wipe away her tears and clean her Barbie with kid-friendly paint stripper. Then tell her parents to keep the nail polish where she can’t reach it.
But there’s more lurking in my mind when I watch this little girl. I can’t help but wonder how she was set up for this video. Did her father chastise her first and then position her in the best light for the camera and the light? Clearly something had gone on before the recording took place because you could tell she was post the ugly cry. You can see the puffy eyes and hear the throat catching post-sob hiccough cries that had surely come before the record button was pushed.
The bit I just can’t process is where the dad decides she’s got a good story , he’s going to have a talk to her with a camera running so that he can make some money off YouTube, no, er so that he can get his kid to go “viral” oh no – maybe he just wants the world to see how he parents. Or how his daughter looks when she cries.
I don’t believe there is a huge security risk in putting your child’s video online but I think there is something as important as security to consider and that is privacy. This little girl may be too young to know that you shouldn’t paint Barbie blue but that doesn’t mean she is not deserving of privacy – and the respect to live her life and learn her lessons away from the eyes of strangers.
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It’s something I think about often as a blogger who wants the world to know how wonderful her child is (and he really is). As his mother and as a writer there are so many things that come up in our day-to-day activities that I want to speak about, that I want to work out, that I want to explore. But I am becoming more and more aware that his story and the lessons I learn through him are not solely mine to tell.
While so much about parenting is universal, there is also much about our kids that is unique to them.
Do you remember being a kid? Isn’t it weird to think how you are still that same person now but with lessons learned and experiences gained? Imagine your mum was telling that story. Imagine she hadn’t stopped? Imagine your first bad encounter with nail polish was viewed by millions?
Some day our little kids will be adults who will fashion their own lives and grow to tell their own stories. Wouldn’t it be great to let them grow up and do that rather than having to grow up living the narrative we have created. Maybe the cute scenes played out between dad and toddler about blue nail polish should be her story to tell if she chooses to.
As much as my maternal instinct loves to watch cute kids, I’m trying to draw myself away from the habit of peering into the life of someone who hasn’t had the opportunity (or capacity) to invite me in.
Oh, and if you do post your kids videos on YouTube please disable comments. People are hideous.
How much of your kids lives do you share online?
I refuse to share too much of my son (4 next month) on my blog or social media. Cute quotes that any kid his age might say? Probably. But I do weed out a lot of situations that would be too embarrassing for him (or that would obviously pose a security issue). He might only be little, but I care about the future him. I know for sure that I’d get so much more site traffic and so many more monetisation opportunities if I showed his full face or told some of those stories I’ve kept to myself. It would be too easy. But easy doesn’t mean ‘best for him/our family’.
The idea of selling him out for my own reflected glory or for money just makes me feel icky.
I do watch some of those types of videos on occasion, but far fewer than I might have before I became a mum. You can never know the full story behind these things but when the child doesn’t seem in on the ‘joke’ or the ‘lesson’ I really don’t like to partake.
I agree with you Kez, our job as parents is not to make money but to take care of our kids. No amount of exploitation of our kids is a good thing xxxx
Wow. That’s all kinds of awful. Prolonged filming of a distressed child. Kids do that kind of stuff, to film a lecture is just cruel. And as you said she was obviously already upset. So to sit her there after she has clearly already been told off and film another lecture is disgraceful. No amount of publicity is worth losing sight of the fact that you’re a parent and your responsibility is to love and protect that child and to ensure they become a secure and confident individual.
It’s awful and sad. Five minutes of fame at your child’s expense. That I will never get xx
I have no kids but have no qualms about putting the cat’s various misdeeds online.
That’s shocking. One – don’t leave a three year old with access to nailpolish and expect her to remember where and how to use it, Two – try to get some sort of confession out of her, which she clearly wasn’t prepared to give (kids do gave active imaginations plus can realise / attempt to offset the impact of doing what they can see, from being punished, that their parents think us wrong) and then wrap it up as if she has confessed and apologised (and say she learned her lesson – really? I don’t think she learned anything other than her Dad was annoyed, tried to get her to say something and the acted as if she gad when she hadn’t) and Three – for God’s sake, don’t FILM it and distribute it. Pretty poor effort all round.