March 21, 2017

Dear Baby,

Much to my chagrin, we ended up at this mom and baby brunch thing today down on Queen street. It was kind of cute but we ended up hanging out with our friends which made me wonder what the point of going to a 45 person brunch is if you don’t bother speaking to anyone you don’t know – which was also fine because I didn’t want to.

So they had this waiver that you could have filled out to negate your child from being photographed and then put on Facebook which I never say and subsequently didn’t fill out.

I think often about how rigid I want to be about your online security and visibility and the ore I think about it, the more I feel strongly about never publishing your image online without your informed consent.

Then it makes me think about consent in general and how much we take for granted when we are dealing with a population of tiny people who can’t speak. So first, it’s the online/ social media stuff. Like, there is a distinct and real possibility that you wouldn’t want your image being posted online. Forget the fact that it makes you a more vulnerable person (people can see you and know about you and may be creeps) and forget that it makes you an early target for advertising and marketing (which it does – they track your activity and “get t know you” which is fucking creepy) and forget that there are a million internet hack creeps who would possibly use your image for something terrible and unsavoury. The more simps thing is that you just haven’t said it’s ok and as a human being with a unique voice and wants, you should.

In the same way, I think it’s really important to respect your personal boundaries and not make you touch or show affection to anyone you don’t want to. A kid who doesn’t want to give kisses isn’t mean – I can tell you that as a fully functioning adult, I often prefer not to kiss and hug in certain times – you should have that right just the same. Your dad laughs a bit when I tell him not to force you to hug or kiss your family goodbye but I think that just because you can’t formulate a response of “no thank you” doesn’t mean we should force shit on you. It doesn’t seem fair.

I think that your voice should always be respected and valued and that you should have the time and space to make up your own mind about how and when and where you want to share yourself – physically, image-wise and otherwise. As much as you are my little doll, you are not in fact, a doll and treating you like a baby will never yield well for either of us.

I hope that by respecting you and your privacy and space, you in turn will make smart decisions about ways to share yourself with others and continue to show yourself the utmost respect always. Trust, you deserve it.

xo

Mom