social media

hi friends!  if you're reading this, you're probably reading this because you clicked on my link either in instagram or facebook.  let me get it out there that i LOVE social media.  social media life is my best life.  literally...my social media is made up photos and words that represent the very best of my life.  my social media is my real life, but it is not ALL of my real life.  it is not the bad, not usually the sad, and not the annoying parts of life.  why am i telling you this?  well, i feel compelled as a consistent poster and user of social media, that i should share my what and why...much like i share and show ellie what i put on social media.

i am very sensitive to the fact that what i put on the internet will always be able to be found on the internet.  i have a few friends who do not post or rarely post photos of their kiddos for that reason.  i get it.  i am curating my kiddos' digital life by what i post.  so that being said, am i going to post photos or words describing them not at their best, having blow outs as babies, or not fully clothed [more on that in a minute]?  not a chance.  now hear me out because i am not trying to preach [i do love a good soap box though], and i am most definitely not judging what other parents do, but i am trying to share my method behind the madness of my social media.

i am a perfectionist in every form or fashion of the word.  because i am a perfectionist, i haven't started on ellie, lucy, or charlie's baby books [procrastination is perfectionism's best friend].  but you know what i can do?  i can take 87 photos of a moment and post the very best one...and guess what happens when i do that?!  i have a digital time stamp!  i use my social media as my own scrapbook for the moment until i can get my rear in gear to make the baby books and our family yearbooks.

now do i have photos of our not great moments?  absolutely.  i have the videos too!  i love sharing these over laughter with our family and our people.  there is nothing i love more than to grab a cup of coffee and talk all about parenting, families, values, intentionality, you name it face-to-face with my people.  i am so grateful to share my parenting struggles, mom fails, and challenges with my kiddos to those people i do life alongside.  i do not share our challenging moments on social media because i don't want those things on the internet for my kiddos to read about in ten, twenty, etc. years.

i recently took a course called the birds & bees [so so good and will chat about this in a future post], and this course was about teaching your kiddos about sex starting around ellie's age and how to keep the conversation going in a respectful and medical way.  from following the birds & bees on instagram, i heard about the book pictured in my post called good pictures bad pictures, jr. , and it is all about porn proofing your children.  well, they confirmed in the book what i had thought through in my social media life. on one of the pages of the book, it says, "bad pictures show the private parts of the body that we cover with a swimsuit."  BINGO!

ellie loves to take photos with my phone, and some of these photos are my favorite.  even though she is 4.5 years old, i know what i say, do, and expect lays the groundwork for her digital future.  she knows she is not allowed to take photos of anyone who is not fully clothed and that mommy will not post the super cute family photos of ellie & charlie in the bathtub!  don't get me wrong--the photos of littles with their bare hineys in the summer or in the tub are some of the quintessential photos of childhood, and they make me smile when i see them.  but, like my favorite parenting quote, "begin as you mean to go," i don't want to confuse ellie as to why i posted photos of her in the tub or with her shirt off when she was little when i fully expect her to not take nor post photos of her without a top on [since girls wear bathing suits covering their chest] when she is older.

now, i know i am a super deep thinker, and some may say over thinker [wink, wink], but it is just the way i'm wired.  even when my goal was to make all A's until college, my fifteen year old brain [y'all know i was born like forty years old] wanted to do well in school, so i could tell my future kiddos that i did that and expect them of that as well [thankfully my thirty year old brain knows that is such faulty logic because i will not expect them to do anything like me because "i did it, so you will too," but at least my heart was in the right spot?!] 

all of this train of thought to say...i think most people use social media to showcase their very best and favorite parts of life, and i love that!  i hope my kiddos understand [when they're twenty and get their first cell phone...ha!], that social media IS a highlight reel, but how fun that can be!  and that God puts incredible people in our daily lives to do the good, bad, and ugly with.  i also hope my kiddos hold on deeply to the meaning of the words in the children's bible song "to be careful little eyes what you see, etc." because what a powerful thing good and bad pictures are!  and even going beyond just pictures, i want them [and myself] to realize the power pictures and words have from the people we let ourselves follow on social media as well.  my goal for the next few months is to really ponder who and what i follow on social media and make sure it encourages, inspires, or brings joy to me.  if it doesn't, then it's got to go!

what are y'all's thoughts on that?  mommas who are ahead of me on parenting...how did and do you protect your kiddos in this digital age?