Facebook

Kids are all over facebook.  I don’t mean the collective youth - the cool kids for whom and by whom facebook was created - I mean actual kids, as in drooling-whining -non-driver’s-licensed-dependents. Their terribly cute mugs are all over facebook. They are in countless status updates doing all sorts of regular kid stuff: smiling; crying; hitting baseballs or scoring goals; they have loose teeth and lost teeth; they’re dressed as ninjas and Jedi’s and Disney Princesses; they’re at the zoo or school or waiting for the bus…  The “look at how cute my kid is” status update is ubiquitous and it’s annoying (and boring too).

I know that sounds really harsh. It is. But if you’re a my-kid-is-my-status- update-offender, tough love is exactly what you need.  Both for your sake and your kid’s (the last thing Baby needs is for the world to be tired of her before she has any say in it).

I get it, I do. Facebook, you’ll say, is your opportunity to share this most important thing in your life with your family and close friends.  But that’s not really, completely true is it? I mean you have your mom’s phone number right? Besides, you’re not just friends with your cousins and your college roommates on facebook are you?  You’re friends with lots of people; you’re probably even friends with people who you’re not actually friends with.  You might be thinking that if it’s just those people who are tired of looking at Junior’s newest outfit/trick/witticism, then who really cares? But it’s not just those people, it’s everyone (ok except for your mom), we’re all tired of feigning interest in your kid, only it’s easier to click the like button and move on than it is to tell you to knock it off.

Of course your kids are a part of your life and to wholly ignore them in your status updates would be both difficult and disingenuous.  I am by no means suggesting you do that; an occasional well-planned, well-executed child-centered/chip-off-the-old-block status update is absolutely welcome.  Use the following guidelines to determine what exactly warrants an update and what’s better left in a text to grandma and grandpa.

 1. Is your less than four weeks old? If yes, than update away. This is the honeymoon period, your chance to prove to everyone you know that it really did happen, that you really did procreate and that you really are as bewildered/sleep deprived as the rest of the parenting world is in those first few weeks. Also, posts now are essential in establishing excuses for future ditziness/missed work/grumpiness/frustration/the general disrepair into which your life is going to fall for the next two to three years. Remember though, that nothing you’re saying about your newest development is particularly original or interesting to anyone with kids of their own, but you’re still allowed to say it for up to four weeks. 

2. Is you child doing something colossally, fantastically inappropriate? Is he willingly flipping someone off? Will the post be a verbatim account of her latest conjugation of assorted sordid terminology (accidental or on-purpose)? Did your kid maybe mix-up some letters here and there and say something particularly off-color? Then post it, we all need to know that your child is as impeccably unmannered as our own.

3. Is your child doing something adult? Not adult in a Jon-Benet creepy kind of a way, adult in a hilarious hijinks sort of a way, like blackmailing a sibling, or gambling or ordering a whisky sour. 

4. Is your child involved in Irish Dancing? Please, if your child is sporting ridiculous River Dance ringlets and lace, then by all means, post a picture (or even a video). That outfit, when pint-sized, is so off-the-wall weird it is borderline awesome.

5. Do you have more than four kids and are they all in the same picture? On their own, your kids are nothing special, but together they are an amazing feat. Lasso the kiddos, dress them all in matching outfits and update all day long; we all appreciate our personal Duggars. 

6. Does the update involve a picture of your child and the family pet?

Don’t do it, your pet is infinitely less interesting than your kid. Together they are almost mind-numbing. Unless, of course, Fido is humping Junior.

 

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