Have you ever found yourself staring at YouTube baby videos where they’re snuggling or dancing and making you smile?  Here, I’ll link you to one, but beware, once you watch one adorable video that pulls your heartstrings, it’s a downward spiral into the cute video loop of despair.

If you zoom out of this situation though, you might consider that these children we are so overjoyed to gawk at will grow up and have real lives someday.  But what kind of future can we predict for them after thousands – or millions – of people watch this video?  Post your baby on YouTube and when (if) it goes viral, be prepared for a lifetime of attention and the possibility that they will be positively or negatively affected by this choice.

You might think that video is a thing of the past once your child is a little older but let me be the one to remind you things are not the same at school.   Tweeny boppers have discovered cyber bullying and considering it’s only predicted to get worse in the future, that video is definitely coming back to haunt you and your child during this time of judgment, gossip and pressure.

Teens and pre-teens are warned that if they don’t want to draw negative attention about something private, then they shouldn’t post it online.  This is a great warning for the kids, but what about parents who do it for them? When they’re little babies and the world is giggles, bubbles and happiness that video can’t do a damn thing to hurt them. But all of those lovely things disappear in places like middle school where sharing links can be worse than passing notes.

Who knows how many more videos will be posted 20 years from now and what kind of personal profiles we will have made completely public.  All I can say is for some of these kids, they will have killer college essays based on the “difficulties” they have faced growing up as Baby Shakira or the Chubby cuppy cake boy.

I know I’m happy (if not over-the-moon thrilled) that YouTube did not exist when I was a child.  All of the horribly embarrassing videos of me are being safely stored in an undisclosed location.   I love having those memories and reminiscing about them with my family always makes us laugh.  I think society should definitely take advantage of modern technology and record memorable moments (including those around us).  It’s wonderful to be able to go back in time to relive those moments in a place of safety and comfort.

Parents in particular should keep in mind the possible future repercussions of posting certain videos of children.  No matter their age or the content in the video, it may come back to kick their asks.