Why My Kids Have Facebook Pages

(source)

We've all seen those viral messages about such and such a group that is sharing pictures of peoples kids to pervs online. We all know someone who refuses to get facebook or let their kids ten feet close to a computer for fear that their information will be saved and used against them for identity theft or other unmentionable things. And you know what? I get it. I really do. 

Given my day-to-day job the instinct I've developed over time is share. share. share! But at what point is it too much? Letting your kids open up their own facebook profiles? Getting them their own computers from which they themselves can do what they please on social media? Making a facebook page for your unborn baby?

Most people I know don't let their kids open their own Facebook Pages or Twitter Accounts until they're past the sign up age limit (14) for the networks. That seems fair. After all, they should be old enough and responsible enough to understand how to use the sites properly.

So then why did I create Personal Facebook Profiles for each of my kids? I mean they're not even close to the legal sign up age, right? (Big is 2.5 and Little is almost a year!) -- Am I crazy?

Well... not in so many words. Let me be specific... their pages are THEIR pages, but they're MY pages until they are past the sign up age. They're completely controlled by me and will be until we can have a reasonable conversation about how social networking works. At that point I will let them dabble in the arts of social media with my supervision.

So then why on earth would I create pages for them that they don't even use?

Well there's a simple answer for that: Timeline.

When Facebook introduced Timeline they were essentially creating a back-loggable digital scrapbook. But I mean, who has the time to go back and fill out every event and milestone they've had? Most of us have inputted the important stuff.... Marriages, Births, Graduations... but not the little milestones, the everyday things that we tell our kids about when they're grown.

Since my kids were born after Facebook's inception (crazy?!) and shortly before Timeline was developed, it has been very easy for me to plug in their milestones, tag them in pictures and places. Essentially every time I tag them in a picture, or at an event, or write anything on their timeline, it is being saved there for them to go back and look at as they please. (Assuming Facebook is even around in 10+ years... which I'm hoping so!)

I've created a digital scrapbook, with time stamps and information that would generally be lost in the fray.

Now don't get me wrong, their Facebook pages are certainly secure. They're LOCKED DOWN, in fact. They aren't searchable and they're completely private. I've added only close personal friends and family to their pages, who can also tag them in photos and at events, write on their walls and include their mark in their daily lives as well. My sister frequently posts little notes to the boys about how cool they are and stuff they're doing as they grow up.

When I think about my kids perusing Facebook with me in a few years, it will be to go back through all of these things; look at baby pictures and birthday parties and when we went to the zoo... there isn't a possibility of running out of room, or time in the day to create these things because it just takes an instant and then it is there... forever!

As much as I'd like to be, I'm just not the Mom who can sit down and make scrapbooks. I generally wouldn't even have time to create a printable digital photo book. But I do have time to write a post here and there, tag some pictures as they're uploaded. Write stories and memories that over time I could forget but will help shape my kids' childhoods.

What's more is that Facebook is downloadable! Did you even know that? You can back up your timeline for safe keeping! So, if I heard that the zombie apocalypse was upon us I'd dash for my closest USB key and jam those profiles on there, just in case.

I know that nothing lasts forever, but for some reason putting my kids memories in the cloud feels a lot more secure to me than keeping them in a drawer under some mail and some saran wrap. When the big one comes up to me and asks me about the day he was born, a few clicks and I can just show him his entire history of life, because it's all there in a pretty little package waiting to be opened!