Not to presume that this hasn’t been a problem for probably the last…10 years…or so…

But…to be specific, this IS DEFINITELY a PROBLEM in 2016!

My blogs are most definitely consumed with all of MY opinions.  That’s just how I roll and what I like to write about…AND what MOST blogs are about nowadays! 🙂  So…that being said…it’s my opinion, and a PROVEN opinion, at that, by yours truly, that we have a freaking problem as a society right now!  In America and throughout several other countries.  Why in the world must we photographically and biographically document our entire lives?  Why?  Really?  When I venture back, to what I like to call “the last years of media-less REAL-TIME MEMORIES”  I have vivid and fond memories of playing dark hide-and-go-seek with my brothers and cousins and playing monopoly until the sun came up and tee-peeing houses with my friends, mud-riding bon-fires with my friends…  I still remember it like it was yesterday and, guess what!?!?  I have no photos or videos of that!  It’s all IN MY BRAIN!  HUUUUHHHHHH! OMG, can you EVEN imagine!

Most of you can because you experienced that too!  But NOW!?!?  Now I am constantly seeing parents videoing their children having meltdowns because of fears…fears that are truly real to them and, instead of their parents consoling them or reasoning with them, we are FILMING them and POSTING them on social media!!!?????  Can you please stop for 5 seconds and think about the fact that your child, your flesh and blood, is terrified of something, no matter how unreasonable the fear may seem to you, and needs comfort and reassurance that they are OK???

How about the photos/videos us holding our sick sleeping ones?  Or the ones of our soon-to-be departed?  Or the selfies of us meeting our relatives for the first time?  I don’t know about you, but I remember a lot less, and see a lot less, when I’m constantly trying to get the best picture of my child’s BIG day, or the best video of the bride saying I do, even though there are paid, professionals doing that for us!?!?  I’m not innocent of this.  I am 100% guilty of some of these scenarios.  And I have regrets.  Regrets of not savoring the moments that God blessed me with, only to replace them with moments that I thought the world would have liked to have seen.  Bottom line is…I don’t care what I THOUGHT the world would have liked to have seen!  As recent as today, I watched a TIMEHOP video of my youngest child walking.  It wasn’t her FIRST time walking…but one of the first.  And, at the end, I was laughing when she tumbled and video’d her trying to get up for a good 5 seconds…I should have helped her up!  I should have put that camera DOWN!

Happy note* I also saw a picture of my niece singing on the intercom, in front of her entire school, which  was AWESOME because I know that what my sister COULD have done, within “society’s standards”  was to have video’d that moment but what she did was actually take in that moment, as she should have, instead of worrying about how she could have gotten the best audio, and probably have made her child 10 times as nervous, had she done that.*

If we dare…and everyone knows…I DARE…to get into THIS!…..Let’s think about the surfaced videos of gangs beating up defenseless homeless people, or mobs attacking people coming out of stores….one comes to mind…because I did watch it, when it surfaced….of a mom walking with her child and a mob of teenage girls attacking her and throwing the child to the ground every time he got up to defend his mom!?!?  The child couldn’t have been older than 3 or 4.  The mom did not fight back…every time, she got up and tried to grab her son’s hand and was beat back down to the ground.  This went on for an excruciatingly long minute or 2 before she finally was allowed to hold her son’s hand and continue on their stroll.  Who does this?  Who finds entertainment in this?  There was a professor in one video, fell out because of a sudden heart attack, and his students filmed it long before it was ever called in to medical professionals.  Let that sink in please.  How would YOU feel?

My mom did not “grow up” in this millennial era.  She was the last generation of mothers that didn’t deal with this.  I envy her.  Mainly because, I was taught how to be a mother from her.  Yet, she didn’t have to deal with what we have to deal with!  It’s not just me, raising my technology-savvy babies…it’s having to deal with women my age, acting as if they are not!  I am not above these women, nor among these women.  There is so much separation amongst me and mothers my own age, it’s ridiculous.  We cannot all reach out to each other because all of us are striving to cope with the ASTRONOMICALLY differentiated motherhood society that we have become!  We are ALL looking for the best way to raise our children and the best way to be the best parents that we can be.  However, we have no guidance from anyone who has come before us because we are the first of our kind!  It’s been several decades before a change of this magnitude has separated the centuries between us.

My only hope and prayer is that we all can pray to God, before anything else, and trust in how He guides us to raise our own.  And for goodness sakes, strive to be the women that our mothers raised us to be, regardless of what strides technology has taken since.  If you fear of what your child can hide with their phones, obviously they have not gained your trust to have them.  TAKE THEM AWAY.  Always remember, YOU ARE THE PARENT.  So…..PARENT!!!!!

Bye for now,

RR