Alas, it has happened. I embarrass my kids. A kiss. An errant comment. I am on shaky ground. Now that my sons are well into their grade school years, they are so much more self-aware.
One of my sons told me he doesn't like the clothes I buy him. You know, like the bright, friendly graphic tees of monsters from Mini Boden. And like the preppy collared shirts from Crew Cuts. He wants to look a little more laid back, like him, he told me, pointing toward a kid at school who was rockin the Tony Hawk look.
So we hit the mall, something my boys never willingly do. We bought tees that make my boys look ever so slightly more cool. As if they dressed themselves, which they do. The outgrown monster tee from Mini Boden looks out of place in a drawer full of "skate" clothing. Oh and the black, there's so much black in there! Preschool clothes = adorable. Big boys clothes = cool.
Like the clothes that my boys wear, I feel a shift. If a kiss at school drop-off feels a wee bit embarrassing to them now, how will they feel about the things I might write about them here on this blog, or worse, on Facebook, where I feel more "free" in a world populated by my "friends"?
I've known for a long time that their stories aren't really mine to tell.
So as my boys have grown, I've pulled back on sharing things that might embarrass my kids later.
I remember in a meeting with the folks at AVG, that what I say online about my kids can be a bigger threat to their privacy than other perceived online threats. What I write now might turn up as fodder for online bullying a decade from now, when my boys reach high school.
I love filling this space with blog posts, so I'm not stopping. I have plenty to say. I've just not been writing about the really embarrassing or ugly stuff in our lives. Oh, it's happening - I just can't document it for posterity.
Sometimes I miss the days when the mom bloggers I followed blogged very personal stories about parenting. In the days before the brands came calling. In the days before their kids left diapers.
On Facebook, moms are still writing about their kids. I write about my kids on Facebook, too, sometimes. But with the new Facebook timeline coming soon to the masses, I don't know if I want it all out there for my future grandchildren to see. We all know there will be many iterations of that timeline and every tweak will likely chip away at the wall of privacy. So I'm more mindful of what I post there - and everywhere. I pretend my kids are reading what I write. I wonder if my kids will look at it all one day - the tweets, the Facebook status updates, my lousy Klout score (I bet) etc. and wonder if I was paying any attention to them, aside from gleaning material for posts.
In the past, we might have read our grandmother's faded diary or letters. We might have had a fuzzy idea of how these ladies really were, but imagine if they had been on Facebook back then. I kind of like that my main memory of my paternal grandma is through the food she created in her tiny kitchen rather than of any unsavory thoughts she might have had.
This generation of children and beyond will be both blessed and burdened by the online voices of their parents and the online voices of themselves. Generation TMI will certainly go on to create their own online presence and so it will continue for generations to come.
And so to my newly self-conscious children, one last loud, wet public SMOOCH and I'll take the rest of our PDAs off-line. Love, Mom.
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