Your Kid is, Like, Twelve By Now

obviously can't do a post about kids w/out a picture of my little one 

My friend recently posted a picture of her kid, the caption reading something like, “omg, can’t believe this little girl will be 2 tomorrow!! when did my baby get so old????” Insert toddler emojis I have no familiarity with. 

I saw the picture and was like, wait, this kids only 2? Like hell she is; I’ve been seeing her mug splashed across Facebook and Instagram for years. I know I’m a shit judge of kid’s age (seeing as I don’t have any and all) but seriously, this kid is like 5 or 6, about to start kindergarten surely. 2 years old?! 

A good friend of mine had a baby last spring. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I’ve seen this kid on Facebook almost every day, typically with a whole album worth of pictures in tow. If I didn’t know when this little guy was born and how he’s not even a year old yet, I’d probably think he was two or three, based on how many pictures I’ve seen of him and all the “firsts” posted so far. 

I like to think I grew up in a simpler time, when parents didn’t have a phone to document every minute of every hour of every day they spent w/ their child. Sure, there are candid shots of me and my sisters as kids, but a lot of our pictures were us getting dressed up for an occasion: a birthday, a holiday, the annual Christmas card. Photo shoots were pretty common b/c my dad worked at a camera store and had access to equipment and photographers, but it was still a semi-ordeal; getting our outfits approved by Mom, whining about said outfit, and then all four of us scrambling for the shower so our hair wouldn’t be captured in its normal greasy state for years to come.

Do kids even get dressed up for pictures anymore? Are today’s parents finding their Christmas card picture by scrolling through the thousands they have like, oh hey, she’s smiling and clean in this one, good to go.

I’m also dying to know who came up w/ the idea that babies need to be photographed w/ that cutout pinned to their outfit saying how many months they are. The caption to those is always like, “sorry I’m late posting this, but we had a crazy day yesterday!!! here’s my baby, ten months old!!!!!” First of all, who are you apologizing to? Do you have a friend w/ a calendar who’s like, oh hell no, Aiden/Brayden Riley/Kylie turned ten months yesterday and that shit was not on my Instagram feed! Second of all, don’t the people who really care about your baby’s monthly milestones, like the grandmas and the aunts, have phones you can just text the picture to directly? Third of all, where are you buying these monthly milestone cutouts? Is there a template you print out on your computer? Do you have to go through some exorbitantly priced Etsy shop? Can you use the same one for boys and girls, and then save them for your second and third children, or are these the things that will take away your Mommy card? 

Some of these things I really wonder about and the rest I’m just tired of seeing on social media. I’m not even going to get into the whole issue of how having hundreds of picture of your baby/toddler on the internet for anyone to see might not be a great idea; that’s a whole different post (or maybe I’ve just seen too many Law and Order: SVU’s). I don't have any kids of my own, so anything I say is wrong and invalid anyway. 

I’m at the point in my social media feed life where babies are the star of the show and I’m clearly not handling it well. Sure, your kid is adorable, but I’d rather see you, my actual friend, preferably stuffing your face w/ cookies or doing a shot or something that is genuinely fun. Your kid if precious, but you're not fooling anyone w/ that thinly veiled, "aw, isn't she cute when she's fussy??!!" comment.