With all the parents out there blogging about their parenting lives, I wonder sociologically/psychologically speaking, how that is going to affect/shape the perspectives of their kids?
It's pretty fascinating to think about.
How many of us 35+ year olds can boast of having some kind of historical play by play access to our parent's thoughts regarding our developement and behavior?
Most baby books abandon record-keeping at age 7, and even then, only record specific accomplishments; first tooth, first doctor visit, school picture, etc..
There are so many things a person experiences growing up and much of it is forgotten. It's nice to think that current and future generations can do a web search and re-experience an innocuous afternoon outing, a particular Halloween, an afternoon movie, shopping for school clothes etc...and as an added bonus, see themselves through their parent's perspective whether it be one of annoyance or amusement. I think being able to see the love behind each post will be reassuring as well.
I really believe on the whole, it will help a lot of kids as they are trying to figure themselves out, appreciate many valuable aspects to their personalities that are typically easy to forget or overlook. The blog-journal is a kind of proof of the child's value somehow that stands on its own regardless of the changing relationship between parent and child.
Being able to re-read old blogs, I imagine, would also be a great comfort as a child becomes a parent him or herself for the first time. The adult child can, to some degree, discard the archetypes and see the parent as a real person going through similar challenges, but with the added bonus of knowing that the story turned out fine.
I'm not a parent, nor do I have an desire to be, but I am envious of this generation's archives.
2 comments:
thanks for your shout-out to the parenting blogger community.
oh man... i can't even tell you how many times I've thought about this... great insight. :)
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