Three for Thursday: Mama/paparazzi, Smothered Mothers and ‘Sesame Street’ President
Item #1: Mama/paparazzi
Are you a charter member of the mama/paparazzi? Do you stalk your offspring with all manner of AV equipment in order to chronicle every second of their little lives?
I used to be camera and video happy, in what seems like another lifetime ago, when my twins were babies and then toddlers. When kid number three arrived, we took photos and videos of all three of them up until around the time the youngest started pre-school. Then there was a precipitous drop off in the amount of video and still imagery The Spouse and I made of our children. Now, we usually only pull the cameras out when there’s an event, like a school concert or birthday party. Whereas I used to keep current with my scrapbooks up until a few years ago, right now, I’m still not even done with the 2007 family scrapbook. Things have definitely slowed down as far as pictures and videos are concerned. We’re being more selective about what images we make or record on video.
But in some quarters, the mama/paparazzi don’t let up and continue snapping the photos and taking the videos, as columnist Betsy Hart describes in her latest column:
“My brother aptly refers to such mob scenes of camera-toting parents as ‘the mom-and-paparazzi.’ They are everywhere. I still marvel when I see them at neighborhood block parties snapping their cameras as their 4-year-old child comes down the slide or jumps in a bouncy house. Are they really going to keep and look at all these photos anyway?”
Have you found your photo- and video-taking habits changed as your kids have gotten older? Remained the same? Do you upload every kid-related video to YouTube?
Item #2: Smothered Mothers
Over on Mommy Track’d (Full disclosure: I’m a contributing columnist there) author Leslie Morgan Steiner talks about how she’s hoping, really hoping, now that the New York Times has declared that the era of helicopter parenting is nearly over (*laughing, serious belly laughing, some scattered knee slapping*) that perhaps the era of obsessively judging other parents will be ending soon as well. Noting the Times’ observation that there’s backlash against helicopter parenting, Morgan Steiner wrote:
“. . . In addition to the damage inflicted upon kids by uber-hovering, we moms are the biggest victims . . . The pressure to micromanage our children in the name of good parenting is a trend, not a truth. The only truth is loving your children, caring for them as best you can, and scraping together a little (or a lot) of fun along the way.”
A-freakin’-men.
Author and columnist Meredith O'Brien gives you a peek behind the picket fences of modern day life and parenting in the 'burbs. With humor and candor, it's her take on real parenting in the real world.
