Why you should consider keeping your kid off of Facebook

Though at this point it's a ubiquitous part of everyone's life, we decided pretty early in my pregnancy that when the time came we wouldn't be posting pictures of our daughter on Facebook. My husband and I have both had profiles since our college years, so we have the typical love/hate relationship with Facebook and the influence it has on our lives.

This has been surprisingly one of the HARDEST decision we've made, especially when we see all of the other cute babies our family and friends are proudly showing off. Our baby is the cutest baby in the UNIVERSE!! It would be really easy for us to cave and I'm surprised we haven't fallen off the wagon yet. However we've also been saved from some headaches we've seen other parents have to deal with.

If you're an avid Facebook user it may not even be a question as to whether you're going to post pictures of your children, but like anything you decide to do as a parent I think it's worth taking a look at some potential repercussions. DISCLAIMER: You are not a terrible parent for posting pics of your kid on facebook.I'm just sharing some of the reasons why we decided not to do so in the hopes of creating some discussion.

1) Your Child's Privacy

60 Minutes recently did a story on how developers are able to use Facebook's database of faces (all those tagged pictures) to create facial recognition software advertisers can use to target consumers. This may sound a little conspiracy nutty but it seems to me that its only a short jump to Big Brother being able to follow us around a la Minority Report. The technology already exists, it's just a matter of who's using it. We're hoping to keep our daughter off the grid until she's old enough to make her own decisions about her identity and whether or not she wants a web presence.

2) Everyone Else's Sanity

Lets face it, there are people out there who overdo the baby on facebook thing. You know the ones: their photo albums are time lapses of their kid's first year. Considering we have over a thousand pictures of our daughter from her first month between us thanks to our iphones, I'm sure most of our friends would tire pretty quickly from the cuteness overload. And they would overload. Very quickly. She's really cute!

3) Save Yourself from Criticism

Everyone has their opinions on child rearing and I'd hate to be the source of dinner table gossip after posting a pic of something I decided to do with my daughter. When you post a picture of yourself or your family on the internet, it's there for everyone to put in their 2 cents.

4) The Future

I fully expect at some point that our kids will want to be part of whatever incarnation of social networking that is around, and most likely it will be when they are way too young (or at least what we will consider way too young). I feel that if I give my child a web presence at this point, it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to tell them"no" later on when they ask if they can have a facebook or twitter or whatever will be around. I won't be keeping them off of the internet if they're already on there.

5) You're Forced to Keep in Touch

Though Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends, it's also lead to something of an over-casualization of correspondence since it's super easy to just like a post or leave a comment and not add any more depth to the interaction. It takes some effort to gather all the physical and email addresses of friends and family that you'd like to stay in touch with! Our solution to sharing our daughter's milestones without Facebook is to send out a monthly email, as well as holiday cards. Everyone likes getting a card in their mail or pics of cute babies in their inbox! There's something about having something physical to open up and look at like a picture or card that satisfies our caveman brains. People become more invested in your child's progress if they only see pictures every so often and have something they can stick on their fridge. 

If you do decide to keep your kid off of Facebook it's important to go over your decidion with your family. You wouldn't want someone to ruin all your effort by posting a pic from a party. So far our family and friends have been very respectful and understanding and some have even applauded our decision.

We're also well aware that by emailing pictures Google has a copy for themselves that they can use however they like. So in the end is it an exercise in futility? Maybe, but we're trying our best to minimize any web presence our kids may have before they're old enough to make their own decisions on their web identity.

Today on the Liturgical Calendar

I hope you're all having a merry Christmas! Today is the Feast of Stephen of Christmas carol fame. I know I'm plum tuckered out from all the Christmas food and fun yesterday, so today is a day for relaxing and watching my baby play with her new toys.

What's NOT on Netflix 

I'm not sure when Netflix's license for Jim Henson studio films expired, but when it did so did some of their great Christmas specials including The Christmas Toy and one of my favorites Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas. I might just have to get a hard copy for my holiday viewing. Until then you can see some of the musical numbers the Jim Henson YouTube channel.

What's on Netflix: Holiday Edition

The Christmas Spirit is in full swing at the Hunter house, and my favorite way of taking in some Christmas cheer is to put on a holiday movie. After some backbreaking research involving lots of popcorn and hot chocolate, I've come up with the following selections for your Holiday viewing pleasure:

1) Lady GaGa and the Muppets' Holiday Spectacular

Kudos to ABC for putting this on Netflix. It's your old fashion tv Christmas special delivered the only way Lady Gaga and the Muppets can: with quirky, goofy skits and eclectic costumes. If you're not a big Gaga fan or if you're a bigger Muppet fan, you may find yourself wishing for more muppets. Then again who doesn't want more muppets!

2)The Radio City Christmas Spectacular

This performance was televised to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the show. I have to admit I was sobbing hormonal mommy sobs while watching this as I'm eagerly anticipating the day I can take my kids to see this show live. But in the meantime, I'm glad it's available to watch since it's really an incredible show. There are a few pitfalls that come with filming a performance that's designed for the stage. Some of the set pieces are reliant on the point of view from the audience so the perspective is a little off, especially during the numbers where a background screen is utilized. But all in all it's great family viewing and great for those who can't make it out to New York to see the show live. 

3) Nutcracker: the Motion Picture

This 1986 production of the nutcracker features sets and costumes designed by Maurice Sendak. A whimsical and surreal interpretation of the classical ballet. Warning: your kids might be obsessed with ballet for a while after watching it. I was!

4) All I Want for Christmas

This is a great New York Christmas movie and stands as exhibit B that the real Santa can be found at Macy's Herald Square (see exhibit A: Miracle on 34th Street). It follows a brother and sister as they try to get their divorced parents to reconcile by Christmas. Featuring Lauren Bacall as their grandmother and Leslie Neilson as Santa!

5) White Christmas

The classic musical will make you long for those Radio Days. I did always find the May-December match of Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney a little creepy, but it's easy to overlook as you get swept up by the singing and dancing. 

6) Love Actually

This movie will go down as my generation's contribution to Christmas classics. It spawned many ensemble holiday movie knock offs (see Valentine's Day, New Years, etc) but none have captured the warmth of this film and the complexity of the characters' relationships. I probably like Laura Linney's character's story the best.

7) Mickey's Magical Christmas: Snowed in at the House of Mickey Mouse

House of Mouse was Disney's Saturday morning cartoon that featured classic shorts book ended by stories of the goings on between various Disney characters at Mickey's club. This edition features a couple of newer shorts, but concludes with Mickeys Christmas Carol. This used to be a special that aired every year on CBS. It features Mickey as Bob Cratchit, Goofy as Jacob Marley, and the giant from Fun and Fancy Free as the ghost of Christmas Present, and of course Scrooge McDuck as Ebeneezer Scrooge. It's fun to try and find all the other Disney characters that appear throughout the film. A great retelling of the classic Dickens tale.  I'm glad it's available for streaming for this generation of kiddies.

8) Veggie Tales: Saint Nicholas: A Story of Joyful Giving

If you're looking for a movie for the kids that keeps Christ in Christmas, this movie is for you. It follows the Veggies as they tell the story of Saint Nicholas's life and learn about the true meaning of Christmas. This movie does a great job of meshing the story of St Nicholas with the myth of Santa Claus

9) A Very Barry Christmas

This quirky stop motion film finds Santa trading places with an Australian safari owner and his misfit animals including a clumsy kangaroo and a thespian platypus. Nothing says Christmas like stop motion Santas.

10) The nightmare before Christmas

This is my all time favorite holiday movie because it combines my two favorite holidays! You can watch it guilt free from October to January. From the Danny Elfman score to the comically macabre characters, this movie has Tim Burton written all over it. Jack Skellington is so charasmatic that his merchandise is still selling today. This is one of those movies you can watch over and over again and still find something new in each frame.  

So grab some hot cocoa and popcorn and fire up your steaming device for some Christmas movie fun!

Christmas Miracles

My 5 month old loves the mistletoe. It hangs on the through way between our living room and den area and has a little gold bell that she never fails to look at when we pass under. I'm not sure if she's come to expect a smooch every time we pass under, but she's always delighted to receive one.

While she's too young to learn about Santa and elves and come to expect magically delivered presents, watching her ooh and aah over our humble decorations really brings me back to the simple joy of the season. I never get tired of watching her marvel at the lights or ornaments that we jingle at her. And although it's been snowing in the northeast, she's infinitely more fascinated by the curtains on the window than the white stuff outside. Future interior decorator?

All of the little discoveries that the new kids in my life make bring back memories that have been buried so deep in my brain. When my daughter sucks on her taggies hippo I can remember the taste and feel of satin versus cotton. When my 3 year old niece kicked the door stop expecting it to bounce back, I remember doing the same to the door stops in my grandmothers apartment and loving the deep "boing" sound they made as it waved back and forth.

I hope this nostalgia also brings understanding. When my baby is a toddler and getting in all sorts of trouble I hope I take the time to remember what it was like discovering the world for the first time.

What's on Netflix

I was really hoping The Lion in Winter was available for streaming. It's a great Christmas movie if you love great acting and medieval history. But alas, its only available on dvd.

Instead I watched Becket, in which a younger Peter O'Toole plays a younger Henry II. It's incredible watching Richard Burton as the archbishop of Canterbury and Peter O'Toole as the king as they duke it out in a classic "church and state" feud in what may be the original "bro-mance". Great acting, medieval history, a great movie to remember Peter O'Toole by.

On Postpartum Body Image

I just got back from my first shopping trip specifically for clothes since having the baby. I have to say it felt pretty good to pick out items that weren't maternity or nursing specific. When looking at the mirror however, I've still got a ways to go before getting back to my pre baby size. But I think I've done a pretty good job at being realistic with where I am and not getting too caught up with the extra flib flab here and there.

For one thing, I'm almost exclusively breast feeding (we started baby on some rice cereal for practice). Nursing is the true "eating for two", you need to consume around 500 extra calories a day to keep your supply up especially the first couple months. Along with that comes the added responsibility of eating the right things since whatever I eat my baby eats. If I ever forget to take my multivitamin I feel like I got hit by a truck so I'm sure if I started eating less nutritious food I'd feel even worse.

It's more important right now that my baby gets fed, so I don't want to take anything out of my diet that might affect my supply unless it was something that my baby was having trouble digesting. For now I'm still eating dairy and gluten, which I had previously eliminated from my diet with great but really drastic results (I lost something like 30 pounds in 2 months). Those are two of the most common foods that could cause digestive problems for babies, but we've been lucky and haven't had any issues on that front. 

I could make more time for fitness, but since I'm not working out as much as I should I'm also not lamenting that I don't have chiseled arms or abs. I'm not the 5 hours a day at the gym type, but I'll work on trying to fit in at least 30 minutes a day.

Being realistic and keeping your baby's nutrition in mind is probably the best way to filter anything you might get from entertainment news, or even a comment from a well meaning loved one (*cough* grandma *cough*). As long as baby is gaining well, it's better to keep on doing what you're doing.

I'm raising a daughter and I want her to have love and respect for her body. She won't develop that if I pick at all the flaws I see with my body.

It's important to remember that my body created a human being! That's pretty incredible! It took nine months to put together all those bones and muscles and organs and my body had to change a whole lot to make that happened. Right now it's making food for my baby to eat, so it's not going to be in default mode until she's completely weaned.

My goal is to be back to my pre baby size by my daughter's 1st birthday. It's totally doable, but I won't sweat it if I'm not exactly where I was this time a year ago.

Today on the Liturgical Calendar:

Today is the feast of Saint Lucy! It's most famous celebration is probably in the Scandinavian countries where traditionally a girl wearing a wreath of candles leads a procession.

I haven't planned any special meals for today, but the name Lucy comes from the latin for light so I'll be admiring the lights on the tree. She's also the patron saint of the blind and those with vision problems, so I'll be praying for an improvement in my prescription and saying a prayer for my niece, also named Lucy.

Jack Frost Nipping at Your Nose?

I'm working on party favors for my nephew's upcoming first birthday. Glee!

I'm making crochet nose covers. They're going to have little snow man faces. I'm still trying to figure out how to do the face part. Hopefully I still have some orange felt.

Today on the Liturgical Calendar:

Today is the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Those of you who grew up watching Wishbone might remember there was an episode that told the story.

 Wasn't Wishbone an amazing show?! 

I celebrated by making some chicken quesadillas for dinner/lunch the next day. Our Lady of Guadalupe is probably one of my favorite icons and there are some beautiful pieces of art based on the image, including this amigurumi piece by one of my favorite amigurumists Allison Hoffman.  

Such a lovely piece. A true work of art made with crochet.

So if you'd like to celebrate today is a good day for some Mexican food and a few Hail Mary's. 

Howdy

Hello and welcome to anyone who's stumbled across this blog. A little about me: I'm a 28 year old stay at home mom of an amazing 5 month old. I worked in reality TV production for about 3 years before marrying and settling down and the like. I love movies and film theory and my main hobby is crochet, although I have quite a craft supply stash and can hot glue a thing or two every now and again.

This blog is mainly designed to be a brain dump for me, a place where I can share my thoughts on this and that as well as some simple recipes and things I've made. If anything on here strikes you as interesting and you'd like to talk more about it comment away! You can also email me at huntressdenn(at)gmail(dot)com. Thanks for stopping by!