A Digital Gift for Your Kids 18 Years in the Making

My son has been online since he was born.

I'm all over the digital world, so my boy made his first appearance online (Instagram and Facebook simultaneously) within 24 hours of his birth. Actually, correct that...I just looked back at my feed. I had a picture of him online within 12 hours of his birth.

It's how we communicate nowadays. With one photo, I let most of my friends and family know that the little boy was here and that he was healthy. Plus, I thought it was kind of cool.

He was on YouTube in a featured video when I returned to work after a few weeks off.

Another cool idea I heard that I am acting on is to open an email account that I manage, with his name, that I will someday turn over to him, if he wants it.

In the meantime, every so often, and perhaps at specific and important times in his life, I'm going to send him messages and pictures. Then, when he turns a certain age I'll give him the username and password, and he can login and see the things me and my wife have written or sent over the years.

It's a two-fold gift. First, I wanted to make sure that the 'huckwoz' prefix was ours, and maybe someday, his. It's hard to find an email address without some number at the end of it, so I claimed 'huckwoz' for him, lest it be taken by someone else.

Second, his mother and I plan to send him thoughts that we have, as we have them, concerning him. Someday, he'll be able to go back and read the things we wrote, and hopefully they will mean something to him.