Promises I make to my future children

Realistically speaking, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to have children, but if I do these promises are for them. If not, I  make these promises to my future nieces and nephews and the children of friends I “adopt” as nieces and nephews.

Know that I love you all, but these are some things I promise:

• I won’t put bathtub or naked baby pictures of you on the Internet. I have friends who post pictures of their kids and friends’ children on Facebook all the time and many of them are in the bathtub. I won’t promise that I won’t take these pictures (I will and already have taken them of my nephew), but I do promise that I won’t post them all over the Internet. It’s just too public and too weird and once those pics are out there on the Internet, no matter how high your privacy settings are or how safe the site you’re posting them on is, it’s still the Internet and it’s still not impenetrable. Meaning you don’t always know who is looking at those pics. Plus, it’s just embarrassing.

• I won’t name you after a place. I will go on the record that I like the name Savannah and that there are a few “place” names that are acceptable. But in a world full of Brooklyns, Paris(es), and other place names like Daytona, Madison, and Austin, I promise I will give you a unique name, but I won’t name you for some random city that may or may not have meaning for you. In all actuality, I really like the idea of a name meaning something. I don’t want my child to share a name with a random city, but rather have a name that really says something important about the kind of person I hope for him/her to be.

• I pray I won’t give you a nickname that will embarrass you or make you want to throw the pillows off the couch at me (or other more hurtful objects). My brother and sister-in-law sometimes refer to my nephew as “Pudge.” I always implore them not to call him that. The boy was pudgy for a long time, and he’s gotten slimmer since he grew a little taller and started walking, but seriously, Pudge? Do you want to give him a complex about his weight? My parents had a nickname for me (that won’t be mentioned) that I’m still a bit embarrassed by. It apparently fit in well with their version of the song “Rocky Top,” which I was not aware was the song of the University of Tennessee at that point and my parents’ version was all about me, so I liked it when they sang it.

• I promise to let you have Facebook or other social media, but I do so with this caveat: I’m going to be watching you like a hawk. I will be in your business.

• I promise to love you, forever, for always. Whether you believe it or not right now, you’re a special blessing from a very good God.