My youngest daughter turned seven this past weekend, and we
celebrated with a pool party and a trip to Lion Country Safari. On the night before her birthday, I went into
her bedroom to tuck her in and sat down and asked her to stop aging and to stay
six forever. She giggled and told me
that she loved me. I then continued our
nightly ritual by saying, “I love you more.”
And she ended with, “I love you most.”
(Yes, this is from Tangled.) The
following morning, I woke up, made some coffee, and posted the number 7 as my
Facebook status. I also changed my
profile picture to a picture of my daughter.
And then I closed my laptop and started to get ready for our trip to
Lion Country Safari. Those of my
Facebook friends who I am closest with understood my status. Most of them had already wished her a happy
birthday with a card or a gift or a phone call the previous day. Every year, when my daughters turn a year
older, I post their age as my status update.
I don’t know why I do it. Maybe
it’s just to validate that the day is special to me.
I’ve noticed that other people do something similar that I
find a little odd. My Facebook feed is
filled with long notes from parents to their young ones, wishing them a great
day. Along these lines, I also see personal
notes to the deceased. I guess my
confusion lies with these sincere posts directed to people who don’t have a
Facebook account, either due to age or death. In the same way I try to figure
out why I post certain things on Facebook verses other things, I am trying to
figure out the nature and rationale of these types of posts. “Happy 6th birthday Jimmy. We love you.”
Does six year old Jimmy have a Facebook account already? Is six year old Jimmy away with his
grandparents on his birthday, so Facebook is a way to communicate with him
while he’s on vacay? Or are these
heartfelt sentiments just a way for people to alert their friends that it’s
their child’s birthday? But if that’s
the case, why not say, “Hey everyone!
It’s my son’s birthday today. Show
him some Facebook love!” In the death
related posts, such as “I miss you so much Aunt Helen. I hope you are looking down at me from
heaven”, I’m assuming this is a part of the grieving process for some? Or is it a way to let others know about how
sad you are about the person’s death in order to get some sympathy from your
friends? As you can see, I don’t quite
understand these types of messages. Although
I post the ages of my daughters on Facebook, I don’t write to them directly on
Facebook because they will never see it.
On the other hand, I do have a personal email account for each of my
girls. I write to them regularly, and
right now, I am the only one with the passwords. I hope to give them the passwords when they
get older. But these are personal,
non-public letters that I know they will get to read someday. As for the people who post letters addressed
to people who do not have Facebook accounts, I sincerely hope that Facebook
isn’t a replacement for saying these beautiful words out loud.
Obviously, I find it interesting how people relay messages
on Facebook. I’m not trying to be a
smart ass (well, maybe a little bit) or an elitist because I post to Facebook
all of the time. I guess I would love to
delve further into why people, myself included, post what they post and what
type of reaction they are specifically looking for. Is it all just an ego boost? Is it part of the so called “Me
Generation”? Or is there something more
to it? Not that I spend my days
wondering about this, but sometimes random things cross my mind. Just
wondering if anyone else out there has ever had the same thoughts, or if anyone
would like to offer their insight.
