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Strollerderby
Does Your Fetus Need A Facebook Page?
How young is too young for Facebook?
An unborn baby girl named Marriah has picked up over 200 Facebook friends before even drawing a breath.
Rather than send out baby announcements, this couple decided to let their friends and family in on their pregnancy by setting up a Facebook page for their future child. They update it regularly with posts written from the baby’s POV, and her fans play along by commenting as if they were talking directly to the baby. The parents say they’re hoping Marriah will have it to look back on when she’s older.
Is this incredibly cute, or kind of creepy? Both?
Personally, I’m charmed by it. And a little nervous. Is this the future? Will my kids be disappointed that I don’t have prenatal Facebook archives for them to peruse?
Sorry kids, all you’ll get from me is this lousy blog. I’ve totally failed to secure your name URLs, sign you up for Gmail, open you a Facebook account or otherwise stake out your digital turf. It’s not that I don’t think these things are important. I’m just old-fashioned enough that I didn’t think of it until stories like this one started popping up.
After all, you were babies. Now you’re little kids. What possible use could you have for an e-mail account?
I can’t help but thinking, though, that these things that seem like cute affectations now – setting up your child’s Facebook account before she’s born, for example – will start to seem more like essentials over time. Like setting up a college fund for your newborn, they’ll become part of what any responsible parent does for their kids. The sort of thing parents like me will feel vaguely guilty about blowing off for years.
I’m not going to run out now and register URLs for my kids, any more than I’m going to pick up the phone and finally schedule an appointment with an attorney to make a will. It’s the kind of thing that will be perpetually #7 on my to-do list. I don’t feel great about that, but at least I know my limits.
What do you think? Is claiming your child’s digital turf poised to become a parental responsibility? Or will this fad fade fast?
Photo:
Underage Kids on Facebook: Is the Internet safe for 8-year-olds?
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4 Comments
Rachel Kadel-Garcia commented on Jun 03 11 at 2:39 pmI don’t see any real benefit to “claiming your child’s digital turf” early that’s comparable to the drawbacks. Sure, you can get a particular URL or user-id now that may not be available later, but doing that starts to establish a (possibly-)permanent and often searchable history tied to it. That history, even if it seems innocuous now, might be disadvantageous later. Also the online accounts a parent establishes now might not match the child’s adult identity.
On a different note, if I’d established accounts for my daughter earlier, I might be tempted to give her direct access to them earlier than I think is wise. (It’s easy to get into social or technical trouble on Facebook.) With a baby, that’s not a problem; obviously if the account exists a parent is going to operate it. But for an older kid who’s maintaining her own social relationships in a lot of ways, it’s a lot harder to defend having you operate “their” accounts than just not having them at all.
Diana commented on Jun 03 11 at 3:33 pmI agreed with everything you said Rachel plus points for being able to discuss it without bashing and looking at both sides you go girl!!!!
Stephanie commented on Jun 03 11 at 5:02 pmI read earlier today that the Facebook page these parents set up has been removed by Facebook.
Cristina commented on Jun 03 11 at 8:06 pmI heard that Facebook has already deleted the account.
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