She Googled Herself and Found ...

And so, it has begun. My child has known about Google for awhile now. She's searched for important, life-altering things. You know, the name of the My Little Pony queen and the like.
But today I was roused from the seat in front of my computer by the type of shriek that means "Come. Now."

She thrust her Kindle in my face. And there she was. Or rather, there we were, mother and daughter, the blue curtains of our dining room behind us.

She'd Googled herself. And up popped a photo from a few months ago when The New York Times sent a photographer to our house.

She recognized it. "The New York Times put me on Google," she announced.

Well, sort of kid. Sort of.

I kept her close as she went further. A photo of her playing in the snow atop a blog post on The Stir about baby names, her baby name to be exact. That was OK.

A photo of the two of us from when she was no more than 2, one I used for years as my profile photo on a site where I was a contract blogger. She liked that one.

And the random shot of her in an over-sized Yankees hat elicited the appropriate Go Yankees response.

But I was glad she gave up the pursuit soon after. It's not what she'll find that worries me. I've been careful about my "oversharing" over the years. I have rules about what goes out there, and what is linked to her name.

And yet, there are some things I'm not prepared to talk about right now, prepare to have Googled just yet. Musings about what will happen when she's a teenager, for example. When she's closer, we'll talk about them. And some of my more random comments on parenting in general, on kids, on topics that go beyond childhood (ahem, 50 Shades of Grey, anyone?).

We'll get there. I'm sure we will. I'm not a "let's lie to the kids" type of mom.

But right now, I'm basking in the 7-year-old-ness of her explorations, the excitement over finding her own photo on Google.

If your kids Google themselves, what will they find? 

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