[O]n the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog, which liberates you to be a bitch. Not a bitch to others — …online mothers’ groups are quick to sanction hostility — but the impatient, imperfect bitch of a mom uses jarred babyfood, disposable diapers and a TV-as sitter. The mom who takes off the halo and admits to impefection.

That comes from the foreword I wrote for Motherhood Online, a terrific volume of essays edited by Michelle Moravec. The chapters cover topics ranging from online communities for mothers trying in vitro fertilization, to the online conversations among moms of autistic kids, to the online support networks for teenage moms who are rewriting the narrative of young motherhood. Reading these essays was fascinating and inspiring, and I was honored that Michelle invited me to contribute a foreword that reflects on some of the essays’ common themes and insights.

You can check out the Table of Contents, read the preface and my foreword to Motherhood Online here – or just go ahead and order a copy on Amazon.com.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

If you have never been more than 39 weeks pregnant, you may be under the impression that the human gestation period lasts 40 weeks. Hah!  40 weeks, it turns out, is kind of a rough overage. Some babies need to cook for a bit longer. Some babies need to cook a bit less.

But when you have been pregnant for 40 weeks plus 1 day, you discover that nobody pays much attention to the idea that your mileage may vary. The phone begins to ring: Have you got a baby yet? Is everything ok? Don’t you need to run out and get a C-section?

At least, that was my experience with Little Sweetie, who finally materialized 17 days after her supposed due date, without any of the telltale signs of a post-term baby. She just needed a little extra time in the oven, and it was only with some fairly intensive medical intervention (Pitocin, anyone?) that she was persuaded to join us out here in the land of the post-natal.

I remember a very tense two weeks before her birth, during which I finally set our outgoing voicemail to say “No baby yet, and we’re not picking up messages, so you’ll hear when you hear.” These days, expectant parents have a  more efficient option: the Facebook or Twitter update that proclaims, with clarity, that baby has not yet arrived.

But why should the expectant parents be tasked with the job of letting us know the latest about their (non)event? As I’ve waited for news from a couple of dear friends who are expecting their first, I have found myself using their Facebook and Twitter feeds as rough indicators of whether baby might be imminent. If there’s been a tweet within the past few hours, I assume they are not yet in labour. Yes, they are geeky enough that they usually update some social network every hour or two. No, they aren’t so geeky that I would expect them to tweet during the labour itself.

For once, despite what Steve Jobs promised, there is no app for that. Oh sure, there are tons of apps for the pregnant or soon-to-be-parents themselves. But what of the rest of us, the eager fans, friends and family?

Sensing a niche to be filled, and recognizing that nothing says I love you (and your future baby) like the gift of wireframes, here is the app I wish I had right now: hatchr.

Admittedly, this part feels a little intrusive, but hey, there is nothing polite about relentlessly scouring your friends’ social media profiles to figure out if they’re in labour — and it’s more or less the same info you get by looking up a user handle on TweetStats.
And because wireframes aren’t much of a gift if they don’t come with a business model:

To my expectant friends: enjoy these days of anticipation! And to the rest of you: every time you feel the urge to check on an expectant friend, try cooking and freezing a meal for them instead. They’ll appreciate it much more, and soon enough.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

Print books may be under siege from the rise of e-books, but they have a tenacious hold on a particular group: children and toddlers. Their parents are insisting this next generation of readers spend their early years with old-fashioned books. This is the case even with parents who themselves are die-hard downloaders of books onto Kindles, iPads, laptops and phones. They freely acknowledge their digital double standard, saying they want their children to be surrounded by print books, to experience turning physical pages as they learn about shapes, colors and animals.

So the New York Times reports in an article today on resistance to ebooks for young children. It’s an interesting challenge for ebook developers, particularly since children’s ebooks have been the standard-bearers for the interactive and graphical possibilities of tablet-native titles. In part because storybooks are shorter than adult titles, they’ve demonstrated far more creativity than the initial generation of adult ebooks, featuring everything from simulated pop-ups to reading aloud to touch-triggered animations.

But it’s a great example of how an app’s greatest strength will typically also be its greatest liability. Precisely because children’s ebooks have been so successful in blurring the line between book and app, and between narrative and game, they can lose the perceived purity of the reading experience. Our emphasis on reading as the cornerstone of education and learning means that parents resist anything that appears to distract from or dilute that reading experience — particularly if it feels like that new paradigm of evil, Video Games.

We owe it to our kids to rethink this idea that books and readings are not only distinct from, but antithetical to, gaming. Gaming is the environment in which our kids will spend a good portion of their school years, and which may also define much of their adult work lives as software developers become more successful at integrating game mechanics into other on- and offline activities.  We can best serve our kids if we not only embrace gaming as part of literacy, but also find ways to integrate it with the traditional literacy of reading.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

There’s nothing like the beginning of a school year to illuminate gaps in your family’s, um….discipline. After a couple of rocky weeks inspired us to take a closer look at our family’s rhythms and regimes, I found myself noting the central role that iPhones and iPads have played in all aspects of our disciplinary approach, acting as:

1. Band-aid: When we’re in a setting that provokes disciplinary challenges, like a line-up or a restaurant, there is nothing like handing over an I-thing to keep otherwise boisterous kids calm and manageable.
2. Carrot: “As soon as you’ve finished cleaning up the playroom you can have some iPad time.” That’s the kind of inducement you hear regularly in our house, where the promise of 1-on-1 time with the iPad is our most consistent motivational technique.
3. Stick: The flip side of the carrot is, of course, our use of iPad and iPhone deprivation as the number one punishment in our family. Immediate misdeeds get immediate removal of the iDevices currently in use. Medium-size misdeeds get a daylong ban from iDevices. Major misdeeds mean at least 24 hours without an iDevice. Oh, what suffering!
4. Threat: What goes around comes around: after hearing me threaten (or enact) iDevice deprivation as a frequent consequence for his misbehaviour, Little Peanut recently threatened to hide my iPhone and iPad as retaliation for a recent disciplinary conflict.
5. Lifeline: I often use my iPhone or iPad to google for kid management tips when I’m faced with a sticky situation.
6. Gold star: You might have settled for stickers as your reward for a job well done, but when we are really trying to get the kids to focus on a particular behaviour, their reward chart pays out in apps. Free apps, mind you. But it’s a very tangible pay-off for working hard on a challenge they are otherwise reluctant to embrace.
7. Reward chart: Besides serving as the prize, the iPad can serve as the chart itself. I’ve been experimenting with various iPhone, iPad and web apps that support digital reward charts for kids. So far none of the iDevice apps are as satisfying as my preferred online chart system, Goal For It, but I would prefer to use a device-based app so am eager to hear suggestions of tools that are visual and sync to the web and/or other iDevices (so mum and dad can keep their charts in sync).
8. Trigger: The iPad, in particular, often acts as a trigger for negative outbursts. Frustration at losing a game, resistance to putting away a device when we need to leave the house, insistence on buying an inappropriate game, sibling battles for control of a given device — all of these have led to meltdowns at one time or another.

Given the central role our iDevices play in so many aspects of our disciplinary regime, and in particular their frequent role as an outburst trigger, it should come as no surprise that we are reevaluating the amount of access our kids have had to the Magical iPad. (You want to convince me it’s really magical? Make my kids’ temper tantrums disappear.) I’ll be back soon with a follow-up post on the different approaches we’re considering.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

Last week I wrote about 5 tech-related kid failures. I somehow managed to leave out the one that is currently the biggest source of irritation in our house: autotunitis.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the disorder, autotunitis is a vocal condition afflicting children whose exposure to music has been dominated by artists who rely heavily on autotune. Tracks by these artists, such as Katy Perry and Lady Gaga, typically sound somewhat nasal and synthetic. In some cases this sound is a byproduct of autotune, while in others it is a deliberate aesthetic choice.

Children who frequently listen to autotuned tracks grow accustomed to this nasal, synthetic quality, which they (consciously or unconsciously) reproduce in their own singing. The effect may be comical (when applied to Baby Beluga) or annoying (when applied to 24/7 covers of Firework.)

Technology analysts may anticipate a future moment in which autotune becomes extinct, not because autotunitis leads to a widespread rejection of the offending sound, but rather, because autotunitis may render it unnecessary. Today’s singers turn to a machine to make their voices sound mechanically perfect. Tomorrow’s singers will have assimilated the mechanical voice into their own biological voice boxes.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Today I’m brutally overtired because our 7-year-old kept us up for an hour in the middle of the night. Cause: nightmares inspired by the iPad game Plants vs. Zombies.

If this feels like divine retribution for exposing my kids to brain-rotting video games, it’s far from the only new-school parenting challenge. Sure, we think about the big issues, like whether kids are ruining their reputations on Facebook, or losing the ability to write full sentences that don’t include the acronym OMG. But what about the little things — the tech-created personality quirks, defects and incapacities that are cropping up among the tech generation? Along with video game nightmares, here are 5 kid failures that I’ve observed:

1. Handset incompetence: Whereby kids grow up so used to talking on speaker phones that they seem incapable of understanding that phones have an earpiece and a mouthpiece.
2. Ad susceptibility: Raised on Tivo and DVDS, children grow up unexposed to advertising, and therefore take every advertisement literally, resulting in family bankruptcy after they act on every infomercial viewed.
3. Googlecentricity: Since Mom or Dad always google the answer to questions like “when were dinosaurs alive?” and “who invented the stapler?”, kids are unable to accept ambiguous answers to questions like “what happens when I die?” and “what do dogs think about?”
4. Monitor smudging: With Android phones, iPhones and iPads fast becoming the most frequently used devices by the under-10 set, kids fail to grasp the idea of a non-touch screen, and insist on touching every TV or monitor that comes within reach.
5. 140-character brains: Kids get so used to their parents tweeting their cutest utterances that they learn to formulate their every thought in 140-charcter increments. Come to think of it, this problem isn’t limited to kids.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

When I first wrote this post in October 2006, LilPnut was only a few months old, and didn’t even have his twitter handle yet. (Who can blame him? Twitter had barely been invented.) Almost five years later we have lots more experience traveling with the kids, and are much less ambitious about integrating business and personal travel. (Partly because it’s harder to keep a 5-year-old quiet, even in the era of iPads.) But I still had a couple new tips to add here, and I think the rest of the post is as relevant as ever, especially to parents with younger children.

I’ve recently become an adventurer in the world of business travel with baby — in this case, our son, now almost 4 months old. He’s now attended three different conferences, and from these experiences I’ve gleaned a few bits of wisdom that I wanted to capture and share:

1. Think twice. Business travel is WAY easier without a kid, so don’t undertake it unless you really need to. That said, don’t let the challenges of business travel dissuade you from doing what’s best for your own work and family — particularly if traveling with your child will allow you to continue providing the benefits of breastfeeding.
2. Start small. My first conference-with-kid experience was an informal, local, one-day event (let’s hear it for BarCamp Vancouver!) that let me alpha test our baby’s ability to quietly endure a meeting before I braved taking him on the road.
3. Know your kid. Think about whether he or she can be quiet in meetings, and also whether you can meet her needs (for food, entertainment, and attention) while in a business setting. I happen to have a very easy and quiet baby, but I sure wouldn’t bring my three-year-old to one of these things. And since kids are constantly changing, you need to re-think your kid’s road-worthiness before each and every trip.
4. Defer to your colleagues. If you’re attending a conference or client meeting with your kid, make sure to put your colleagues’ comfort first. Identify a location where you can nurse or entertain your kid if he starts to cry or disturb the proceedings.
5. Buddy up. At the last conference I attended I was lucky to have a buddy — the lovely Katrin Verclas — who jumped in to lend a hand. Katrin volunteered to hold the baby at a few key moments, including dinnertime (my first two-handed dinner in months!!) Having the support of a buddy made all the difference to my experience.
6. Forewarned is forearmed. Let meeting organizers or clients know if you’ll be bringing your kid, and give them a chance to tell you if their setting is not child friendly. When I attended the fabulous Online Community Summit, I checked with conference organizers before registering; their welcoming attitude helped me feel comfortable about participating. After the success of that venture, I didn’t worry about forewarning the folks at the Blog Business Summit; they’ve been fantastically accommodating, but I’m sure they’d have appreciated a chance to consider the challenges in advance.
7. Scale your expectations. If you attend a conference with your kid, be prepared to miss big chunks of presentations and social events so that you can step out and attend to your kid’s needs.
8. Scale your budget. Be prepared to spend more money than you usually would to make your trip as easy as possible — stay at the nearest hotel, get valet parking, order room service. And if you’re evaluating whether a conference or client visit is worth undertaking with child, consider not whether the event is worth the cost in and of itself – consider if it will still be worth the cost of a no-expense-spared approach, even if you miss half the conference sessions.
9. Your kid is part of your presentation. Whenever you attend a conference or client meeting, you think about your self-presentation. When you’re attending with a kid, your kid becomes part of that presentation. So make sure your kid has a clean face, clean clothes, and behaves well.
10. Connect with your kid. Don’t forget to interact with him. or there’s no point in having him along.
11. Connect with your colleagues. If you travel with a well-behaved kid, you’ll find that many of your colleagues will be warm and welcoming — particularly the other parents in the room. Make the most of this chance to connect with colleagues on a personal level: one of the things I’ve enjoyed about traveling with my baby is the chance to hear from other parents about their own experiences juggling work and family. How else would I have left a business blogging summit with the URL of a great attachment parenting blog? I’ve really appreciated hearing from other moms who remember the challenges of life with a new baby, and whose support — whether it’s holding the baby so I can use the bathroom, or cheering me on for trying this juggling act — remind me that I’m not the only woman out there trying to combine work and motherhood.
12. Accept non-acceptance. While the vast majority of your colleagues are likely to be encouraging and supportive, some people may not be happy to see a baby at a business event. Accept that some people aren’t going to like seeing your baby, the same way they might not like what you’ve got to say or what you’re wearing. Anticipate those reactions, and know in advance which accommodations you’re willing to make for others. But don’t let concern about other people’s reactions push you into sharing more information about your circumstances than you feel comfortable disclosing, or into a decision that jeopardizes your child’s well-being or your professional or personal integrity.
13. UPDATE: Draw a line between work and family time. Combining family travel with business travel can be a great (and economical) experience, but it works best when you are very clear about how and when to draw the line. Maybe you’re unavailable to your family for the first three days of a conference, but the next ten days are family time; maybe mornings are for meetings and afternoons are for kids and fun. Just make sure that you, your spouse and your colleagues are all agreed on those limits beforehand, and that you communicate the expectations to your kids.
14. UPDATE: Make room for your family. We’ve had terrific success lining up housing swaps in four different cities, mostly using Craigslist. Unlike a conference or business hotel — which may be only marginally welcoming to children, and crawling with colleagues who will give you the hairy eyeball if your kids go tearing down a hallway — a home exchange ensures your family has a home base while you’re on the road. If you can swap with a family that has similarly-aged kids, you’re likely to land in a setting that is well set-up for your needs.
15. Cheer yourself on. When I first started using my laptop at conferences, about ten years ago, people used to ask me to put it away — they found the key tapping disturbing. Ten years later, everyone has their laptops out to take meeting notes (or check their e-mail!) That culture shift happened gradually — and a similar culture shift has to happen around children. The more that thoughtful parents include their well-behaved children in their professional lives, the more we’ll break down the cultural wall that separates the public and private spheres — a wall that has historically served to keep women and men in separate worlds. So give yourself a cheer for bringing baby along: you’re not just helping your family or business, you’re helping make our culture stronger, healthier and more human.

Originally published October 27, 2006.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

This weekend Little Sweetie asked whether she can have my computer when I die. I had to explain that she is unlikely to want it: by the time I die, my current computer will be useless.

“But how about this,” I suggested instead. “When I die, you can have whatever computer I have at the time. Although I want somebody else to clean it first.”

“Why?” she asked.

“You don’t want to have to read love letters from my old boyfriends or journal entries about how crazy I was after having a baby.”

She was satisfied with this deal, but I want to add a rider. About six months ago, Sweetie and I went to see an exhibit at the Vancouver Art Gallery by Song Dong, titled Waste Not. It consisted of a lifetime’s worth of objects — everything from shoes to plastic bottles to furniture — as hoarded over a lifetime by the artist’s mother.

When the time comes, I will doubtless leave Little Sweetie and Little Peanut to contend with an epic collection of physical detritus, judging from both our current house and my genetic predisposition to packrattitude. When my grandmother died my mother and I were cleaning out her apartment, we opened a closet that began with a layer of string-handled shopping bags. My grandmother loved the shopping bags that Sak’s, Lord & Taylor, Macy’s and Bloomingdales dispensed, and she could never bear to throw one away. We pulled out the layer shopping bags to find out what was in the closet, and found another layer of shopping bags. And then another. It turns out that if you live in New York your entire life, and you can’t bear to throw out a single shopping bag from a New York department store, you accumulate a closet’s worth of string-handled bags.

The shopping bags were (relatively) easy to let go of, but not so the other treasures we found in that apartment. There were generations of “I can’t throw this away” embedded in her various cupboards, from my great-grandfather’s childhood sketchbook to his grandfather’s newspaper clippings. From this experience I realized the urgency of regular purging: what you inherit from your parents may be treasures or it may be clutter, but what they leave from their parents is by definition an heirloom.

That realization may have inspired me to be modestly diligent about curbing my tendencies toward the hoarding of physical objects, but it does nothing to slow the rate of digital accumulation. On the contrary, I go to enormous lengths to ensure that I hold onto every email, file and floppy disk I’ve every had.

One day, this pile of digital crap will get passed along to Little Sweetie and Little Sweetie. I could put all the really incriminating stuff in a separate folder and ask a couple of good friends to ensure it gets deleted (or at least kept out of my kids’ hands) upon my timely or untimely demise, but the kids are still going to be handed a lifetime’s worth of memos, emails, podcasts, half-written short stories, tweets, journal entries, meeting notes, read and unread research papers, hip hop tracks, interview transcriptions, photos, bookmarks, torrented TV shows, university essays, digital receipts, client reports, blog posts, book proposals, web page wireframes, jotted-down ideas, family video, graduate research notes, craft projects, travel bookings, Broadway cast albums, screenshots and php snippets. Just thinking about the volume of bits I will leave behind is enough to kill me now.

And the very worst part is that unlike the family memorabilia my grandmother accumulated, this collection will fit on a single hard drive or web server: my kids will have no excuse for not maintaining it and passing it on. The main chore will be ensuring that the stored data will be accessible to future generations rather than decaying on a single drive. There’s a great potential business for perpetual digital crypts that archive your loved ones’ digital remains and keep it in viable storage formats.

How much value do we really get from hanging onto our files in perpetuity? Maybe my archival impulse stems from the fact that my parents both spent their careers digging through other people’s documentary remains. Maybe it’s the digital equivalent of a closet full of shopping bags. Maybe it’s a way to cheat death, metaphorically or (as per the premise of Caprica) even literally. Maybe it’s proof that social media fuels narcissistic pathology.

But Song Dong gives me hope. If a lifetime’s worth of physical objects can be transformed into an art installation, what might an artist create with a lifetime’s worth of data? From video projections to an immersive landscape of the voice and music of the dead, to touchscreens that let you leaf through someone else’s files, to walls covered in printed-out emails and photos: that’s just the beginning of the creative possibilities.

I won’t curse my kids with the expectation that they transform my digital detritus into a world-renowned work of art. But I suspect it’s not (solely) that public recognition that made Song Dong’s Waste Not significant to the artist. Art is a way of knowing, a way of coming to terms with the world and your place in it. If curating your mother’s material possessions can help you know her — and yourself — then what might you learn from grappling with your mother’s digital remains? That’s for us to wonder, and for our children to find out.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

Our family spends a lot of time online. I’m constantly astonished by the way our kids will casually say, “You can tweet that, Daddy” or “Don’t Facebook that, Mummy!” the way I might have asked my mom to stop talking so loudly in a restaurant. Our kids are only 4 and 7, so I’m nothing less than delighted that they already direct us on how to represent them online — or conversely, to respect their privacy.

The ongoing conversation in our home about how to use social media — and in particular, how to do so in a way that is both safe and enjoyable for our kids — has helped us evolve a de facto social media policy governing how we engage with social media as a family. I decided it was time to go from de facto to actual, recorded policy. I found some great resources for thinking about corporate social media policies on Inc., Social Media Today and PolicyTool.net, and used these to help me think about the kinds of issues we might want to cover in our family social media policy.

Our policy is in text below. It refers to our household as the Palindrome (our nickname for our house) and to our kids’ online handles, so I’ve created a more generic, downloadable version here (RTF) that you can adapt for your own family. By the way, I am not a lawyer, so I am in no way suggesting that this is a legally binding document. But hey, if your kids are suing you over your rules around Facebook, you’ve got bigger problems than my lack of a law degree.

A Family Social Media Policy for the Palindrome (Samuel-Cottingham family)

It is the responsibility of all residents of the Palindrome to familiarize themselves with this social media policy. Those residents who are not able to read may request assistance reading and interpreting the social media policy until such a time as they are literate. Palindrome residents are subject to this policy until they reach the age of 18 or become fully self-supporting, whichever comes later. This policy holds whether they identify themselves as residents of the Palindrome or participate in social media activities under a pseudonym.

This policy applies to all social media, online communities, networked video games, and Internet-connected devices. This includes but is not limited to blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, the PlayStation Network, Xbox LIVE, and GameCenter apps. This policy is additional to any other family policies governing use of TV, e-mail, smartphones, videogames, tablets and the Internet. Its policies hold with respect to all family members’ online activities, whether they are executed in the course of schoolwork, professional responsibilities or personal use.

Use of social media and online tools

The use of social media and other networked tools is part of our family life and relationships. The respectful, creative and safe use of social and interactive media is encouraged, as is the thoughtful and conscious decision to refrain from using any electronic device or online tool at a specific time, or generally. Each member of our family is expected to determine his or her own preferred set of on- and offline activities and to control the persona or personas s/he chooses to maintain online. For minor residents, these online activities must take place within the bounds of safety and good judgement, as determined by Mummy and Daddy. Before participating in social media, joining any online network or registering as a user of an online game, minor residents must obtain the permission of Mummy or Daddy.

Confidentiality

All conversations, activities and events at the Palindrome shall be treated as confidential.  Off-site conversations and activities shared by members of our household shall likewise be covered by this expectation of confidentiality. Confidentiality may be waived by any member of the household upon explicit request. Do not post, tweet, Facebook or otherwise share any images, utterances or activities of family members without their consent. This applies to both parents and minor residents; minor residents may grant or deny any request to post their utterances, images or creations to blogs, Facebook, Twitter or other online media. Likewise, we must respect the wishes of our family and friends regarding the confidentiality of our social engagements and conversations.

Privacy

It is the responsibility of all residents and visitors to the Palindrome to safeguard the personally identifiable information of minor residents. Each resident of the Palindrome will be restricted in their disclosure of personally identifiable information until such a time as they have proven their alertness to “stranger danger”; the scope of permissable sharing will be commensurate with each resident’s age and capacity for self-protection. Personally identifiable information includes the dates and locations of upcoming vacations or travel, names or locations of schools and after-school programs, the legal names of minor family members or depictions of the faces of minor family members.

All postings that reference minor residents should refer to them by their online handles: Lil Sweetie and Lil Peanut. Images of minor residents are to be shared only within password-protected or limited membership circles online (for example, a limited circle of Facebook friends).

Disclaimers

When posting content to the Internet, all members of the Palindrome household should make it clear that their online postings represent their opinions alone. When speaking on behalf of other family members, please be explicit about which family members are represented in the post.

Intellectual property

All members of the Palindrome are encouraged to publish their online content under Creative Commons licenses. When violating copyright laws (for example, by downloading protected video or audio content) any member of the household may be asked to provide a clear, internally consistent argument for that violation; minor residents may ask for help reading and interpreting relevant materials on intellectual property laws and alternative copyright regimes. Where warranted by the volume or content of illegally or illicitly obtained content, residents may be requested to provide their justification in writing. Minor residents may request justification from parents as well as vice versa.

Passwords

No member of the Palindrome household will attempt to obtain, through deception or observation, the password of any other family member. This includes but is not limited to e-mail logins, social media logins, iPad and iPhone unlock codes and iTunes store accounts.

Assistance

All members of the Palindrome may request technical, creative or instructional support from other members in their use of social media, online gaming or other interactive tools. These requests may be subject to the availability and priorities of other family members. Wherever possible, Mummy and Daddy will endeavour to assist the minor residents in their safe exploration of the Internet and other networked and electronic devices.

Feedback

All residents of the Palindrome are welcome to comment on this social media policy, and to request future iterations or amendments. Minor residents are encouraged to provide retrospective appreciation for their parents’ efforts at including them in the governance of family Internet use, and for the general awesomeness of the level of technology to which they have access at a young age.

Creating your family policy

If you are interested in developing your own family social media policy, you can download a draft family social media policy in RTF form (adapted to be slightly more generic). Please leave a comment or send me a tweet if you decide to use or adapt it – I’d love to hear how it works or how you’ve amended it.

If you’re looking for more resources that can help you think about how to set boundaries around your kids’ use of social media, I highly recommend the great articles and tips at Common Sense Media.  And if you want a policy for your kids’ offline activities, you might want to check out the Terms of Use for our toy cupboard.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

When you’ve got kids, business travel is especially stressful. It’s hard for them to have mum or dad away, and it’s hard for you to miss them. Here are 5 ways that technology can help:

1. Google your trip: Before you hit the road, spend a few minutes showing your kids where you’ll be going. Google your destination and show them a few images so they can picture the city you will be visiting or even the hotel where you will be staying. Use Google Maps to show your child where you will be and how it relates geographically to your hometown. This is a great way to make geography real and meaningful to your child.
2. Download a bedtime story: Maybe you don’t want to lug the complete Beatrix Potter collection, but you can download one of your kid’s favorite books to your e-reader or laptop. Call or Skype at bedtime, and ask your spouse or babysitter to turn the pages of your child’s storybook while you read the words on your virtual edition.
3. Make a movie: When my husband is on the road, he often shoots a short movie for the kids with his phone or webcam. It might be a walk down the Vegas strip, or a puppet show he puts on in his hotel room (don’t forget to pack the finger puppets!) It lets the kids know he’s thinking about them and helps him feel like they are along for the ride.
4. Make a playlist: Our family bedtime features a now-standard set of bedtime songs. The kids prefer it when we sing for them ourselves, but in a pinch we can pull up their favorite bedtime songs on the iPhone so they won’t object when (unlike their dad) I forget the words to U2′s Pride.
5. Yelp a souvenir: You can count on the airport newsstand if you want to return home with a plastic airplane or a stuffed mascot for the local sports team. But it’s much nicer to bring the kids a small souvenir that relates to one of your passions. If you’ve got even a 20 minute break in your meeting schedule, use Yelp to find the nearest art supply shop, toy store or hobby shop and pick up a gift that reflects your child’s latest interest. Or better yet, Yelp before you leave home to find a really outstanding craftsperson or toy store in the city you’ll be visiting so that you can return with something that is unique to your destination.

Of course, the number one way technology can reduce the stress of business travel is by keeping you at home. These 10 ways to use social media to get the most out of business travel can help.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

“What did kids do before there were iPads?” our kids asked us last week. This question was astonishing not just as an indicator of how central the iPad has become to our family life, but of how incredibly short our kids’ memories are.

“What do you mean, ‘kids’?” I replied. “What did you guys do before the iPad?”

With a little prodding, our kids were able to recall the distant memory of their lives 13 months ago, as if forcing themselves to relive an early childhood trauma around which their subconscious had erected a barely penetrable wall. I pushed them still further.

“You know, you’re not just older than the iPad…you’re both older than the iPhone!”

At this point, their minds were well and truly blown. Our younger child may predate the 2007 arrival of the iPhone by nearly a year, but a world without perpetually available, pocket-size entertainment is beyond his grasp. Even his big sister can’t remember those dark days when she had to amuse herself in restaurants with something as primitive as crayons and the back of a menu.

Snipped from a map of the 2007 Internet as a subway system, by Information Architects Japan. (Click to view full map.)

Their relationship to the chronology of the iPhone is a miniaturized version of the process I’ve been through in the past month. OK, so I’m technically older than CNN, email and the graphical user interface, but I can barely remember a world without them. So many of the anniversary dates I’ve discovered in my retrospective have startled me with their newness, or conversely, their distance: did we really get our first computer only a year after Canada got properly online? Was there really a moment when we could have avoided the horrors of the animated gif? Have people really been pontificating about the rules of netiquette for 28 years?

My incredulity stems from the difficulty of recollecting what life was really like before I spent half of it online. The pre-Internet world now feels as distant as a foreign planet or ancient civilization.

Just as I want my kids to comprehend the possibility of Apple-free amusement, I strive to hold onto a few small elements of continuity with my pre-tech life. I juggle time zones so that I can enjoy extended phone calls with a handful of my dearest long-distance friends, even though emails and Twitter would make it easier to keep in touch. I still read novels on actual paper. I do a little bit of sewing and a little bit of cooking so that I retain a few practical skills that don’t involve a keyboard or an Internet connection.

These are old-fashioned activities that I love, but holding onto them increasingly feels like a virtue as well as a pleasure. Bombarded with dire warnings about how the Internet is disrupting our families, our relationships and our capacity for self-entertainment, there is increasingly a sense of nobility in cultivating a few offline interests. In part, the capacity to sever from the hive mind feels like a sign of spiritual or emotional depth, the way a passion for opera or Greek poetry used to signal one’s cultural sophistication.  But the preservation of an offline self can also feel like a form of noblesse oblige, a heritage that we are safeguarding for today’s kids, and tomorrow’s.

At (nearly) age 40, I’m part of the last generation — in the developed world, anyhow — that will have a significant bank of pre-Internet memories. If my 30-year-old friends even remember when their family got its first computer, it’s because they remember the thrill of playing Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? When their kids inquire (with a  mix of curiosity and revulsion) about life in the pre-iPhone, pre-Playstation, pre-Google world, they will at best regale them with tales of pixellated video games and ill-programmed Barbies.

When I told my kids about life before iPad I told them about a time when I played hide-and-seek in the local park. I told them about building Barbie houses out of shoe boxes. I told them about reading book after book, just for fun.

And I told them about being frequently, painfully bored. I was an only child in a world of 7 TV channels and no Internet, and it wasn’t especially fun. If I’m a fast reader and a decent writer it may be thanks to all the times I escaped into a novel, but if I’m a compulsive multi-tasker it may be that I’m making up for all those times when there was nothing to do at all. I don’t romanticize the kind of childhood that predated Tivo and videogames, but I recognize that my memories of a pre-tech world include a few experiences worth saving.

We are in the early stages of a massive cultural negotiation over how technology will be assimilated into our  work, our personal lives, our identities and even our bodies. As we dive into that negotiation process, we will need to draw upon values, practices and mindsets that pre-date the Internet so that we can bring the best of the old into our life with the new. Choosing at least three areas of your life that you refuse to digitize can be your contribution to this warehouse of offline experience, your own personal archival selection from The Land Before Internet Time.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

Once upon a time* there lived a princess who had everything a princess could want. She had an air conditioned castle furnished with tasteful furniture from Design Out Of Reach, and a solar-powered car that could run at up to 100 MPH, and a large-screen TV that received over a hundred channels. More importantly, she could do anything a princess might want to do: she was an excellent surfer, a renowned aerialist, a prolific painter and a skilled welder.

Despite all these possessions and talents, however, the princess was unhappy. She had no shortage of ladies-in-waiting, royal cousins, minions and exotic pets. And yet the princess was terribly, terribly lonely.

When she drove her solar-powered car sharply around a bend in the local mountain road, she wanted to share her triumph with someone who understood the difficulty of maintaining control at high speeds. When she finished watching the latest episode of Real Princesses of Forest County, she wanted to compare notes with someone else who cared about Forest County’s shocking disregard for landscaping standards. When she managed to weld an exceptionally complex set of spires onto her balcony, she wanted to show it off to someone who appreciated the quality of her craftsmanship.

The king and queen could see that their daughter was unhappy, so they did what any normal set of royal parents do when faced with a lonely princess: they looked for a lonely prince. After all, the princess wasn’t getting any younger, and while all that surfing and trapeze work certainly helped her keep a lovely figure, the welding ensured that her once-delicate hands now showed their age. Find her a prince now, they figured, while she’s still got her looks, and that will provide her with all the companionship she could want.

The royal parents didn’t know a lot about prince-finding, but luckily the princess had a fairy godmother who was quite worldly and kept up with things. This fairy godmother gave the king and queen all the latest advice on how to look for a prince, and helped them formulated their proclamation:

Every prince needs his princess!
Carriage rides are meant for two. Find your happily ever after with a princess who has it all: looks, talent and a fast, environmentally sensitive car. If you’re sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate, passionate, charming, as kind as you’re handsome, and heir to a throne then this could be the princess for you. Send an intro and recent portrait to @lonelyprincess15.

The castle was soon deluged by the emissaries of distant princes who were hoping for an introduction, and nearby princes who’d ridden over to see this princess for themselves. The princess consented to spend an afternoon with a prince who shared her passion for circus arts, but was disappointed to discover he enjoyed clowning rather than trapeze. She agreed to let another prince watch the big game on her large-screen TV, but found that high def merely intensified the boredom of watching cricket. She had some hope for a prince who professed his passion for both welding and surfing, but found herself questioning his intellect when he turned up with a handmade iron surfboard.

All these princes left the princess lonelier than ever. To meet so many potential mates who shared one or two of her interests, and then to realize that she would never find someone who shared all of them: well, the princess couldn’t bring herself to choose. She withdrew into her hobbies, and told her parents that if she couldn’t share all of her passions, she’d rather rely on her inner resources and come to terms with a lifetime of isolation.

The king and queen had heard of princesses who took that kind of self-reliant attitude, and they knew it could lead to poetry writing or even Buddhism. Why, there hadn’t been a Buddhist in their family in fourteen generations! They weren’t going to let it happen on their watch.

Just when the entire court was near despair, the tower watch reported that two royal parties had been spotted in the distant hills. But this time, the suitors were not mere princes: they were full-fledged kings!

When the two kings arrived at the castle, the king and queen hastened to look them over. One king was dark and handsome; his crest featured a blue bird. The other king was fair and shy; his crest showed a simple silhouette of a man’s face.

The Bird King kept his introduction brief. “I am the king of a new kingdom. I promise the princess a lifetime of conversation.”

The Face King cleared his throat, and launched into a monologue. “My kingdom is already established. I am simply new to these lands. I promise the princess a lifetime of friendship. Also private messaging,
photos, groups, blogging and a wall where her friends can leave her public messages.”

The king and queen were impressed by the eloquent simplicity of the Bird King, and awed by the riches promised by the Face King. Surely both kings were at least worthy of an introduction to the princess herself! The princess was brought into the throne room, where she posed her own questions to the would-be matches.

“Can you keep up with me on a mountain drive?” she asked.

“Just say the word NASCAR and you’ll have trouble keeping up with ME,” the Bird King said.

“Spend your life in my kingdom, and a world of drivers can become your friends,” countered the Face King.

“And will you be able to appreciate my accomplishments as a surfer, aerialist and welder?” the princess next demanded.

“When you give word of your latest feat, it will echo across the land,” promised the Bird King.

“The news of each and every achievement will be shared not only with me but all of your friends, so that they may tell you how they like it,” said the Face King.

“And will you even keep me company when I watch the Real Princesses of Forest County?” the princess asked.

The Bird King smiled. “In my kingdom, you will hear from the Real Princesses themselves.”

The Face King matched him. “With me, you will be able to discuss every aspect of the Real Princesses in excruciating detail, and know that you will always find a response that is just as passionate.”

For the first time in many moons, the princess felt the faintest glimmer of hope that her loneliness might yet be cured. But her fairy godmother knew that such a cure did not come easily; it fell to her to pose the questions that the princess and her parents had not thought to ask.

“Why is there no princess who yet graces your kingdom?” she asked the two nobles.

“Our kingdom is still in beta,” said the Bird King.

“It’s complicated,” said the Face King.

“Are your subjects wise or foolish?” the godmother asked.

“As in your land, we have both,” the Bird King replied. “The princess may choose who she will heed.”

“We too have all manner of subject,” said the Face King. “The princess may find groups as wise and talented as she is. She may even choose to become friends with only those she holds in highest esteem. Of course, that’s not how most people do it.”

“And I must ask: are either of you currently under any curses, cease and desist orders, or other functional limitations?”

Both Kings paled.

“Those in our land must speak briefly,” answered the Bird King. “When the princess shares her joys or sorrows, her words will vanish near as quick as they are uttered.”

“The princess will be free to speak her mind, to wander the kingdom, to befriend those who amuse her: in short, to enjoy all the liberties she has here,” the Face King said.  ”But she must know that everything she does will be reported to me, and that her stories will become my stories for all eternity.”

The king and queen sighed. How could they ask the princess to accept either king, knowing that each suffered from so dire a curse? Surely, the princess was destined to remain lonely forever. Her parents steeled themselves for an onslaught of tears, moping and Alannis Morisette.

But to their amazement, the princess wore a shining smile.

“Dear kings, I am honored and humbled by the riches you promise,” she said, holding out her hands to the two men. They each clasped one of her rough hands in theirs. “But I can not become your queen.”

“Bird King, the eloquence of your people and the abundance of your conversation warms my heart. I would know the pleasure of sharing each of life’s joys with those who share that passion!”

“Face King, I can only imagine the love and kindness of a kingdom in which each subject has so many friends. I would know the joy of friendship myself, and feel my friends beside me at every moment!”

The princess paused, and gently withdrew her hands from the kings’ grasp.

“But I can not give my whole life to either of your kingdoms. To speak in so few words, when my heart is bursting with volumes…Bird King, that is no fate for me. And Face King, my stories can not be your stories; some must be guarded for me alone, or shared with all the world instead.”

The two kings now looked as forlorn and worried as the king and queen.

“If I can not be your queen,” the princess continued, “I would yet be your subject. Bird King, permit me to live in your kingdom by day: to share my news with the world, and to find in your kingdom a voice and companion for every one of my own passions. Face King, permit me to live in your kingdom by night: to review my day with those few friends I choose from among your good subjects, and with whom I shall share only the stories I would permit you to keep.”

Most kings balk when a potential queen rejects them. But both of these kings were busy building their kingdoms, and disinclined to turn away any potential subject, especially one as influential as a princess. They gave their assent, and each provided the princess with a lengthy contractual agreement that she asked her fairy godmother to read for her. (Unbeknownst to the princess, her fairy godmother nodded off while reading, so the royal family never did know exactly what they agreed to.) With the documents signed, the princess embarked on her new life, and promised her parents that she would make regular visits to her home kingdom.

As she had hoped, the princess was no longer lonely. In the land of the Bird King she had conversations about welding with her fellow ironworkers, compared watercolor techniques with her fellow painters, and was regularly mentioned by one of the Real Princesses of Forest County. In the land of the Face King her wall was constantly festooned with well wishes, and as the King himself had predicted, she acquired a large circle of friends, not all of whom she actually knew. In fact she had so many conversations and so many friends that she ceased to be known as the Lonely Princess, and was universally recognized by her new title: the Social Princess.

The princess never broke a promise, so she continued to visit her parents in the kingdom of her birth even as she spent more and more time in the kingdoms of the Face King and the Bird King. Her parents thought the arrangement slightly peculiar, and like many parents wished the princess would spend more time with them, but on the whole they were relieved that the princess was happy and hadn’t turned out to be a poet or a Buddhist.

But the princess herself sometimes wondered what it would have been like to meditate.

*Circa 2006.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

A few years ago somebody broke into our office and stole a couple of new-in-box hard drives, a giant cake knife and a colleague’s little Cambodian Buddha. I figure the stolen Buddha pretty much guarantees the thief will get his karmic retribution, but that didn’t ease the sting of losing one other, deeply sentimental possession. Sure it was old, and not really functional, and I hadn’t used it anymore: I was still heartbroken to lose my first-generation, 5 GB scroll wheel iPod.

I got that iPod in October 2001, five days after the first iPod was released. By the time of its theft, that iPod’s functional role in my life had long sine been superceded by my iPhone, and an iPod nano. But I still treasured my original iPod for what it represented: The Internet’s permanent disruption and reconstitution of creative, content-generating industries like music. An unprecedented harmony of usability and aesthetics.The beginning of Apple’s ascension from underdog to top dog (in share price, anyhow). Physical proof of my chronic early adopter status.

What I didn’t yet appreciate was the underlying tension between these various aspects of my Apple-loving identity: in particular, between my appreciation for Apple’s product usability, and its contribution to disruptive innovation. With the arrival of the iPad last year, the simmering criticisms of Apple’s closed approach to platform development burst into all-out war, as the geek crowd took Apple to task for its highly controlled approach to the iOS App Store in particular. As Alex Payne wrote in a very thoughtful blog post:

The tragedy of the iPad is that it truly seems to offer a better model of computing for many people – perhaps the majority of people. Gone are the confusing concepts and metaphors of the last thirty years of computing. Gone is the ability to endlessly tweak and twiddle towards no particular gain. The iPad is simple, straightforward, maintenance-free; everything that’s been proven with the success of the iPhone, but more so…..The iPhone can, to some extent, be forgiven its closed nature….That the iPad is a closed system is harder to forgive… This is why I say that the iPad is a cynical thing: Apple can’t – or won’t – conceive of a future for personal computing that is both elegant and open, usable and free…..

The thing that bothers me most about the iPad is this: if I had an iPad rather than a real computer as a kid, I’d never be a programmer today…. Perhaps the iPad signals an end to the “hacker era” of digital history. Now that consumers and traditional media understand the digital world, maybe there’s proportionally less need for freewheeling technological experimentation and platforms that allow for the same. Maybe the hypothetical mom doesn’t need a real computer.

It’s this hypothetical mom who inspires me to defend both Apple and the open web. As someone who is both a mom and a geek, I feel for all the moms who want to make effective use of technology — whether to advance their careers, or plan the next family outing — but who don’t necessarily have the time to build their own home media server. I am told that some mothers spend up to 60 minutes a day interacting with their offspring in a screen-free environment, and I can see how that would really cut into your blogging, tweeting and scripting. Apple gives the busy moms of the world (in other words, all moms) a set of turn-key, highly usable technology platforms. If I were able to resist the temptation to hackintosh my way to a tinier Macbook air, or jailbreak my deprecated iPhone so my son can use it as a DIY DS alternative, or to simply limit myself to 3 Apple devices, then being an Apple user would be a definite time-saver.

Even as a geeky mom, Apple products have been life-changing. When I look back at twenty years’ worth of Apple purchases, I’m struck by the extent to which each Apple purchase was a solution to a previous tech pain point:

Time and again, Apple has bailed me out of the trouble I create for myself as an early adopter. For moms (or anyone else) who is trying to fit early adopterhood into an overflowing schedule, the turnkey simplicity of Apple products comes as a welcome antidote to the endless time sink of making somebody else’s not-quite-there technology work almost well enough. Whether I’m in pursuit of an MP3 player, a usable net-connected camera or a smartphone that just works, Apple has rescued me from the frustrations of half-assed, poorly designed, not-really-functional solutions.

But as with any white knight, this rescue comes at a price. Feminist critiques of fairy tales note that the paradigm of damsel in distress, waiting for her rescue, helps consign women to passivity. Geek critiques of the iPad are stunningly similar:

• [C]onsuming media is obviously a big deal for a whole lot of people. For creative people, this device is nothing. (Tim Bray)
• Apple threatens to split computing into two markets, one for “traditional,” “real” computers, and another for passive consumption devices that try to play games without physical controls and let you read books, watch movies, play music, and run apps so long as you’re willing to go through the conduit of a single company. (Peter Kirn)
• Apple is turning internet into a passive medium, feeding it to us with tools that let us consume instead of create. (Omar Rodriguez)

If you accept the argument that busy moms are falling into that trap of passivity in allowing Apple to “rescue” us from the burden of technology management, we’re paying the price three times over. We’re paying for it by turning into passive consumers rather than active creators (though as Ian Betteridge points out, this argument is most convincing if we believe that programming is the ultimate expression of computer-enabled creativity). We’re paying for it by consigning ourselves and our children to the cruel, limiting world of proprietary systems that constrain our ability to hack — to truly own — our own computers (unless these locked-down devices are merely the on-ramps for infants or others who aren’t quite ready for a keyboard). And of course, we’re paying for it by buying into a ridiculous self-image. As Cory Doctorow put it:

[It] seems like Apple’s model customer is that same stupid stereotype of a technophobic, timid, scatterbrained mother as appears in a billion renditions of “that’s too complicated for my mom” (listen to the pundits extol the virtues of the iPad and time how long it takes for them to explain that here, finally, is something that isn’t too complicated for their poor old mothers).

Moms — and every other Internet user who doesn’t have time to put tech maintenance at the top of their to-do list — shouldn’t have to choose between hassle-free passivity and high-overhead empowerment. As many of the critiques point out, there is no intrinsic reason that Apple couldn’t offer well-designed, highly usable products that are also open and extensible.

But Apple isn’t the only player with the power to create technologies that combine usability and openness. If more developers invested serious time in documentation, their web sites and software tools would be a lot more accessible. If techies put resources into design as well as programming, there might be open source tools that launch with more aesthetic appeal than you get from a bunch of grey-on-grey boxes. If hard-core geeks made a point of talking with moms, rather than relegating them to the mommy bloggers table, maybe they’d hear what matters to actual mothers rather than the imaginary mothers they’ve commissioned to raise the next generation of programmers.

What would they hear? Maybe they’d hear that the limiting factor in our kids’ technological engagement isn’t fear of technology, or Apple’s pandering to some stereotypical notion of low-tech motherhood, or even the fact that Apple products have glue not screws. In my case, they’d hear that what actually matters is whether the devices I hand them can I actually compete with the fully pre-fab, heavily branded experiences they get offered on a DS or a PlayStation or an XBox. Or that one of my biggest concerns is the danger of my kid fucking up my computer (a big fear if they’re using my precariously installed hackintosh, a minimal concern if they are using my sealed up iPad). Or maybe they’d hear that between my day job and  the 7 computers I keep running at home and oh yeah, 2 kids,  I have no time to figure out the best way to get a 4-year-old to use our “kid-friendly” OLPC Linux machine.

It’s easy to be ideological when you’re not the one handing a kid the nearest trouble-free device so that you can finish c0oking dinner, or write the memo that’s due tomorrow, or help an older sibling with her homework. And I’m actually a great supporter of the ideology that advocates for an open web rather than (more!) proprietary platforms. I just wish there were a way to support it that didn’t place a further  burden on harried moms.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

One of the Internet’s most ambitious and durable experiments in local community networking began in October 1993. That’s when the Blacksburg Electronic Village officially opened to the community of Blacksburg, Virginia, thanks to a partnership with Virginia Tech. This weekend we remember Virginia Tech in a much sadder light: as the site of an horrific 2007 shooting that left 32 people dead.

A thoughtful post by Andy Carvin, written just days after those events, reflected on how Blacksburg’s legendary connectedness failed to spare or even assist in this emergency:

If you had asked me 10 or 12 years ago to cite an example of what it means to bridge the digital divide, I’d bet that my unequivocal answer would have been Blacksburg, Virginia. The city of Blacksburg, in conjunction with Virginia Tech, was one of the first municipalities in the country to make a commitment to developing Internet infrastructure for the public good….So as I watched the events unfold on Monday as police realized the magnitude of the shooting that had taken place on the Virginia Tech campus, one of my first thoughts was, “Of all the campuses in the country, how could this happen here?”

Carvin noted that the university’s decision to update the community by email was subject to a common problem with emergency online communications: crashing overloaded servers. For this reason, he notes, many emergency communications strategies focus instead on low-bandwidth SMS (text) messaging. As Carvin wrote:

I have no doubt that universities that don’t have mandatory cell phone requirements or SMS alert systems are going to take the idea a lot more seriously now. But will K-12 schools? I’m skeptical. There is enormous opposition to allowing students to possess phones on campus, even though many parents argue they’re necessary for emergency communications. Some administrations will respond by saying the chances of a real emergency are slim, and students can’t be trusted to use them responsibly. Yes, an emergency on the scale of Virginia Tech are few and far between, but smaller-scale emergencies do happen from time to time. When more school shootings happen – and they will happen – it’s likely that more parents will be outraged by the fact their schools made it difficult or impossible to communicate with their children. And there will come a time when we will have no choice but to allow our students to carry communications devices. It may not be this month or even this year, but it will happen.

Carvin’s post feels all-too-prescient. In the wake of Japan’s earthquake, I’ve spoken with many Vancouver parents who share our anxieties about raising kids in an earthquake zone.  For the most part, our kids are in schools that have not received (or even been scheduled for) the seismic upgrades that are required to keep them safe. We’re gambling with our future, in a very real and terrifying way. A plan for emergency communications is just one thread in a larger conversation about emergency preparedness for our kids — a conversation that has yet to take place.

Meanwhile I hear and read about all the parents who are worrying about their kids and cell phones in a whole other way: worrying about  how those phones are used to post embarrassing pictures on Facebook, worrying about how kids play with iPhones instead of Barbies, worrying about how kids text instead of talk. These are valid worries, and the moment that anyone shares the plan for how we’re keeping our kids safe from the big dangers — earthquakes, school shootings, climate change — they’ll go to the top of my priority list.

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online

Yesterday Little Sweetie returned home without her retainer. This is the moment we have been dreading for the four months since she got it. While interrogating her about possible locations for said orthodontic appliance, I couldn’t help digressing into a conversation about possible ways of keeping track of her retainer in the future. Here are the three options we came up with:

1. RetainerSquare: Use FourSquare “check in” every time your retainer comes out. GPS won’t be able to differentiate between the school lunchroom and our daughter’s classroom, but we can probably infer her location from the checkin time.
   Downside: Losing an iPhone is almost as expensive as losing a retainer.
2. RetainerWatch: A watch with two buttons: you press one when you take your retainer out, and another when your retainer goes back in. If you haven’t pressed the check-in button after 15 minutes, the watch beeps to remind you to find your retainer. If your child returns home without her retainer, you connect the watch to your computer via USB connector and review the log to see when she last took out the retainer; tracking it down is up to you.
   Downside: It doesn’t actually exist, and I don’t know how to make one.
3. RetainerRosary: Sweetie’s suggestion: A bracelet with beads to represent different locations: classroom, lunchroom, home, after-school activity, restaurant. When your child takes off her retainer, she moves a clip to indicate where she is at the time. Downside: it isn’t electronic.

I’m tempted to give the bracelet a try. Meanwhile, if you find a retainer that says Cottingham, can you please let me know?

Read more about better living with social media by visiting Love your life online