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My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

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Re: My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

#21

Post by papa »

brandnewlow wrote: post #19
mad44 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We will of course do this for the second kid :-). I think this will turn out to be not too much of a burden. I am sending a dozen medium-sized emails everyday already, what is a couple more for my children.

I say that as an eldest son with two siblings who still give me crap years later because my parents invested more time in "parenting stuff" with me than they did with either of them.

So true from my experience as a parent. My first child has about a 5:1 advantage in baby photographs.

The upside is that the younger sibling gets the invaluable experience of a sibling from day one.

But regardless of what happens or doesn't happen between child 1 and child 2 in the case of the original poster, this is a great idea.

Re: My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

#23

Post by weegee »

bad idea, what if somehow they all get deleted? why not spend the time you would spend pecking away at the keyboard, actually playing with your son, building a relationship with him, communicating with him in real time, giving him the confidence and strength to be all he can be? what is email going to do for him other than amuse him? or rather than email, why not write a daily diary about your life, and then give it to him when he's an adult. far more valuable because it's a thing, not some words on a screen. of course, this comment will be modded down ad infinitum.

Re: My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

#24

Post by jasonlbaptiste »

Wow, talk about a catchy title. I don't think you can come up with a better gift to give your son, as it will always be with him, and certainly his own kids.

Not sure if it's of any use for this, but we launched a family sharing app on HN the other day- Ramamia.com. If it is/you have any questions, drop an email to j@ramamia.com.

I hope this post sparks a lot of other parents to do the same with their kids. I'm glad to see more posts like this, supporting the positive things technology is enabling, rather than more "Madoff Posts".

-jlb

Re: My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

#25

Post by greyman »

weegee wrote: post #23

bad idea, what if somehow they all get deleted? why not spend the time you would spend pecking away at the keyboard, actually playing with your son, building a relationship with him, communicating with him in real time, giving him the confidence and strength to be all he can be? what is email going to do for him other than amuse him? or rather than email, why not write a daily diary about your life, and then give it…

He can write it late in the evening when the son sleeps...anyway, I probably see your point. If I would get such a gift from my father...I don't know....I would be curious of course, but on the other side, maybe I wouldn't really want to read about his very personal feelings (even if they were related to my childhood).

Re: My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

#26

Post by greyman »

vaksel wrote: post #20

I dunno if its worth the effort. It'll probably end up like all of photo albums people keep. Opened once when they are presented to the kid, and then thrown in the closet, never to be opened again. If you overwhelm him with too much information he is less likely to read them. I doubt he'll care that much about the minute details of your life. Its a good idea to track the stuff, but I would stick only to big occasions…

I don't think it's typical that photo albums are thrown in the closet...my father did a lot of photography and I always like to look through them, recently I even scanned the best pieces.

Re: My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

#27

Post by tdavis »

This seems like an interesting idea, but I think daily entries would be a bit excessive. Perhaps a weekly or monthly e-mail? It might make sense to keep minor notes so you don't forget stuff, but I really couldn't see myself writing an e-mail to somebody every day, even my own kid. There's just not enough interesting stuff to log on a daily basis.

Re: My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

#28

Post by jyothi »

That's a very sweet idea. I think along with the musings of his growing up connect it with your life and your stories.

Have you read 'Black Beauty'? I would want my son/daughter to read something similar while he/she is growing up. To make it a personal thing, it could be stories from my life itself.

Re: My new year's resolution is to email my 15 months old son daily

#29

Post by charcoal »

Good intention, but bad idea. Instead, keep a scrapbook for him. To include text, write it in Emacs then print it out and paste in the paper. Put pictures in the scrapbook too. Involve your wife and decorate the pages too, if you like.

Forget about using gmail for this. Keep his childhood private -- he'll thank you for it. The scrapbook is something you can look at together on the couch as a family.

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