Losing Ourselves... on Facebook?

While I completely understand that having a baby or getting married is an irrevocable life change, sometimes it worries me to see my friends and even my acquaintances changing their profile pics to pics of their children. Psychologically women are much more connected to their relationships and get a lot of their identity from the relationships they have in their lives. However, sometimes it seems like they're trading having a life of their own for having other lives around them.

While I love seeing pictures of my friends new children on facebook and I enjoy hearing stories of the adventures of motherhood and wifehood, there's also something profoundly scary about posting things on the internet about your children. Our world is more global and it's much more difficult to keep in touch, but now stories moms would share across the coffee table are available for anyone on their newsfeed or twitter-list. Pictures which would be kept in an album and shown at parties or barbecues are easily emailed via weblinks.

Women are trading the intimacy of family life for the ease of public access. In all of this I'm wondering if something is not lost. Women are placing their identities in their children and husbands instead of in themselves... I wonder, if something is not lost.

I am not married and I don't have children, but I believe in the power of families. Strong families and good mothers and fathers are foundational in our communities. But I also believe in the power of the individual. I left home and my family to do good in the world, as many others have. I care about my community and spend a lot of time teaching, mentoring, working with families and helping make it a better place. But I don't believe to be a good mother you have to give up who you are. On the contrary, I think you shouldn't. Children need to see the strong, lovely women their mothers are... women who believe in something, work for something, fight for something. Men need to see the women they fell in love with... not just themselves.

I'm not saying people shouldn't post pictures on facebook or tell stories of their children. I'm just saying think for a moment, see if you feel if something is not lost. Post something about your thoughts and your ideas, post something about who you are sometimes, between the funny thing your new baby did or the funny thing your husband said the other night at dinner... post something that is just you.