Commentary: I'm a sucker for first-day-of-school pictures. It feels like it comes close to what we get as a new tradition in the past few years, a way for your social media community to come together and get a look at those critters you've made. A not-so-small part of me enjoys how I make others feel old when they notice what grade my kids are going into.
I feel a similar shock when I go on my rounds to check out old blogs. For whatever reason, the blogs that I read heavily about 10 to 15 years ago were all mommy blogs. Maybe I read them to get a glimpse of a future I wanted. Maybe I was there for the slight touch of mundane horror it came across as to me, then a single lady. Maybe they were just better writers. I was riveted by birth stories and how women negotiated the changes in their lives that children and marriage brought.
Over time, their kids grew and their marriages — even in sanitized reports — showed cracks. Then came the piano recitals, the vacations, the eating disorders, the book deals, the divorces. The women crafted their narrative arcs in their home space online, creating the stories of their lives in straightforward ways or using lies to be discovered or admitted to years later. Parts of their stories were adorned by weaving their children's lives — both achievements and struggles — into theirs.
The rawer the stories were, the more accolades the blogger typically got. It was incredibly relatable, and why hadn't anyone ever talked about things like the loneliness of miscarriages in real, authentic ways? How do you navigate the discovery of autism in your child? How about the child's discovery of their new gender identity?
Except the children didn't seem to have much of a say in how their story was woven, and their desires were shoved under the rug. A couple of interviews of preteens who had their young years intensely documented popped up about five years ago. I had secondhand guilt about their frank distaste of the internet, where enthusiastic support of their mom to them became a cold, unwelcome gaze from strangers. While they could Google their name and see how their mom wrote lovingly about them, their friends could do the same and find stories about leaking diapers. Someday, perhaps their employers may as well.
My children's entrance on the internet, where they will craft their own identity, is coming. I will try to keep an eye on them as much as possible, guiding their safety and perhaps detailing my history of seeing things when I was too young that I didn't understand. But I'll know that as they grow, their inclusion on my social media should be up for them to say no to easily, full stop.
Recently, a fellow mom friend had a brief post I appreciated. She said she was happy to see all the first-day photos, but her teen said he was done posing for those pictures. She acquiesced.
It's a part of our children's growth as independent people with independent journeys for us to allow them to opt out. It's also one more step in growing as parents to allow them to build their own story, a story where we are the home they can come back to, wipe their feet on the rugs and flop onto the couch with complete anonymity.
Cassie McClure is a writer, millennial, and unapologetic fan of the Oxford comma. She can be contacted at cassie@mcclurepublications.com. To find out more about Cassie McClure and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.