It has always amused me to see parents of newborns taking movies of their baby’s every move.   Now, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a wonderful idea to film children at every age to see them grow over the years and have this valuable account of their lives.  I wish that this opportunity would have been available to me, so that I could have done this with my own children as they were growing up.

The thing I don’t understand, is the fact that there are some parents who make videos of absolutely “everything” their children do. There will never be enough time to watch them all.  And, when one is always filming, that person is not a part of the moments being captured.

To me, it seems that if you are filming everything, then you should edit the footage along the way. Otherwise, you will never be able to find that moment that you want to view again.  Doing this will give you a representative account of the growth and maturity that you want to capture.  There simply are not enough hours in the day to watch so many hours of anything.

Which brings me to the whole idea of spending time being together.  These memories that we create, by just being totally in the moment with our children are the movies we play in our minds.  The making of these memories, as well as the retelling of them, are experiences we can enjoy and remember together with our children. They are priceless.  These interactions reinforce the bonds we form in our families.  They become our “oral history.”

In some cultures, these oral traditions are the ties that bind families and communities of people together.  When this is done, people become connected in “real time” at each retelling of a story that is shared.  Watching memories are great, but making them is what “real” life is all about.  If I had to choose between real time and “reel time”, there is no contest.  Real beats reel any day.