Ask HN: Parents, How do you record special moments and stay present? I have been struggling with the tension between wanting to record special moments with my family and staying present to enjoy the moment in real time. I'm afraid the answer to this is "you cant dummy just be with your kids" but I wanted to see how others cope with this tension. Do we need to bring back Google Glass from the tech graveyard? |
He has this concept he teaches called Homework for Life.
The idea is that you write down 1 to 2 sentences of the single most storyworthy thing that happened to you each day in spreadsheet. Over time you get better at identifying these as you sharpen your storytelling lens.
This process has a whole host of benefits. You start to see that you make big different in the world. Time starts to slow down and you are more present. You have a record and way to recall all these amazing stories of your family.
All this for 5 minutes of time each day.
1) Not everything needs to be captured and preserved. My kids do dozens of things worthy of capturing every week, sometimes every day. While in the moment they all feel unique, “sampling” what I choose to record still results in plenty of content that paints a pretty complete picture.
2) Often taking out the phone causes them to change their behavior and diminishes the moment. Just today I caught my 18 month year old reading to himself making car and animal noises as he flipped the pages. As soon as he saw me with them phone he kept reading but did it much more silently.
Now I capture when I feel it’s right but don’t stress what I don’t catch. No one single moment will matter in the long run.
Initially, it was pain to use phone for photos or videos. Especially, the lag of unlocking phone, finding the right icon to click on and the waiting for the camera app to load.
But I record tons of boring moments, like kids eating, napping etc. It wasn’t deliberate practice, just something I enjoyed. I think this helped me get faster with phone camera. Now I am able to capture spontaneous moments pretty often. Also be able to capture them without looking at the phone.
But there is no way for me to be part of moments and also capture it myself. Usually, if I’m engaged with kids, then my wife captures the moment and vice versa.
The lasting effect of shared experiences is stronger.
It works for us.
Recording the moments can be a way of staying out of the way and making space for other people (but it can be a way of getting in the way too of course).
Anyway I think being present in ordinary moments is probably more important to your child. Your partner/spouse/etc can be another matter.
Good luck.
on the other hand, do also record the not special moments. let everyone get used to the camera. make it normal that you take photos and videos often. then doing so at the special events hopefully becomes less distracting.
in asia, taking photos at events is more common, so it is a more natural part of any event, and people are not bothered by it.
Treat every moment as normal, keep going on.