Look at that. Are you melting? This idea is so adorable and it's on my list of 'things to do immediately'. It's such a great way to snapshot our children's year - what they looked like, what they liked, what they did. I can see a little 21 page book being presented to each of them on their 21st birthday... if books still exist then, of course.
It's got me thinking, though. Most things get me thinking one way or another, right?
Well, this is what I'm thinking now...
Too much?
This incessant need we parents have to document our child's every move? To photograph and write it down and sometimes to wrap it all up in a professionally bound book and present it to them on their 21st birthday. Is it too much?
It's not natural, that's for sure. I don't think we were born to know the exact minute that we first smiled or walked or pooed in a toilet and it's definitely not natural that someone videotaped it. I'm pretty sure that all this parental documentary making means our children won't get to have the same sense of nostalgia about their lives that we are blessed with. Those magical family talks where you're all trying to agree what really happened on the 1982 road trip. Or was it 1983?
Not our kids. We're basically recording their every move, but it's our own version of their childhood that we're producing. We style them and pose them a little bit but not too much and then we take their picture. We're not recording their thoughts or feelings or flit-in-flit-out dreams or any of the other important bits that shape a memory, a life. The thread that weaves all that reality and a sense of self together in a person's own mind.
The sense of self we are giving to our children is perhaps a little inflated, don't you think? 20,000 photographs all starring... you, you, all you! Videos, booklets, wall art, blogs, journals, coffee cups... you, you, all you!
At the park the other day I saw a mother taking photos of her daughter at play. Miss 4 paused and posed and played and paused and posed and played. My first thought was "the only time that kid smiles is when the camera is in her face"... no, actually, my first thought was "does that mum blog?", but my second thought was much more important. The only time she smiled was when the camera was in her face.
Too much?
