In theory, I have one child who could have and manage his own Facebook account or Twitter account. He’s fourteen, so he’s old enough to. But I don’t feel comfortable allowing him to use a website that requires the use of his full name, and I don’t feel like he’s at a point where he could use any of these sites, would want to, or would get the same meaning out of them that we do. I mean, I could help him manage something… but I’m not sure about that, because if he weren’t enjoying it and wanting to do it, what would the point be? And in a way, it’s kind of ironic. Kids that he has grown up with have their own social networking accounts and enjoyably use them. And here I am, not even using his real name when I make public posts about him. I could if I wanted, but I don’t feel comfortable doing so given real-life (real life? how do you parse that?) circumstances, so here we are. Also, ironically the child in the picture isn’t the child that I’m writing about. He is too young to have social networking accounts of his own. I’m content to allow him to explore on YouTube and YouTube Kids.

Plus, I wouldn’t want to deal with the idea of having to help him navigate online conversations. Not yet.

So here we are. I feel old writing this entry out and I’m only thirty-five years old (my oldest son is fourteen).