I was scrolling through my cell phone images yesterday when I came across a photo I took with my phone about two years ago.
It's a picture of my son, about age 7 then, sitting in the waiting room at a doctor's office. He's wearing a Wisconsin T-shirt, shorts, short white socks and tennis shoes. His arms are stretched straight toward the ceiling, and each hand is making a peace sign. The furniture in this doctor's office can best be described as "airport waiting area," so the backdrop sets a depressing tone for this photo of a little boy, desperately trying to entertain himself while the clock ticks too slowly. There's something very kitschy about it that gave my husband and me a good belly laugh.
Rather than describing this photo to you, I should have posted it, right? And I could have, if I would have just kept my mouth shut.
After discovering this lost treasure on my cell phone, I transferred it to my computer. I then posted it on my Facebook page. My son came up just as I was about to shut down my computer, so I showed him the photo and asked him if he remembered it.
"That's not me," he said, calmly.
"Of course it is!" I replied.
"That can't be me. That person is wearing shorts," he explained. (Disclosure: My son has gone two full summers without wearing shorts once. He'll wear a swimsuit when swimming only, but no shorts. Even on the hottest days. I can't explain it so I don't even try.)
"It is you," I said. "You used to wear shorts, and when you did, I took this picture."
He remained unconvinced -- at least on the outside. (I think he very much recognized his younger self and just didn't want to remember the humiliating days when he still dressed like that.)
He looked at the picture again.
"You didn't show that to anyone, did you?" he asked. "It's not on your Facebook page, is it?"
Well, technically he was looking at it on my Facebook page, but at 9 years old was unaware of that, so how to get around this?
I didn't answer, and there was a distraction that moved his attention elsewhere, so I never did.
So what's fair here in the age of Internet parenting? Old photos of kids are fair game for the Facebook page or best left in a quiet folder on the desktop?
I'm sure of my son's answer, but I'd like to know yours.
In the meantime, I'll log off to prevent me from accidentally posting it here. You know, completely accidentally.
