A man has been praised for his ‘adorable’ idea to immortalise special moments of his childrens’ childhoods though an email address.
He urged all parents to set their children up with an email address before they’re born so you can write them messages and send videos and photographs to look about on later in life.
These could include your reaction after learning you’re expecting a child, your first photo after being born, or a simple day when you’re relaxing at home together.
On Reddit, he said: “I made my son an email address when he was born, and every so often my wife and I will send him some pictures with a message or story.
“Sometimes just describing a fun day we had, and sometimes just a simple message telling him how much I love him. Someday I’ll give him the keys and hopefully he’ll get a kick out of it.”
Taking this one step further, another parent said: “I made my son a professional email with first.last@gmail.com just because I was afraid someone else would take it.
“I plan on using a separate email internet alias junk email until he’s high school. Purge the old stuff; easier to erase his internet shenanigans that way as well.”
However, some users warned parents that all their email memories could be lost if they fail to log into their child’s account to keep it active every now and then.
One user said: “If you do this make sure to log in periodically. Would be a shame to lose the account due to inactivity.”
Another user added: “I love this idea but has anyone made it to teenager point when the email gets turned over and they think all of it is dumb?
“Erase it, turn it into memes etc? Are we turning the account over earlier? Or much later – like 25?”
A third user said: “Once a month, on the day of his birth I record a 10-minute message using Google Recorder, chatting to him about what’s been going on in the last month, milestones, etc.
“I email him links to the recordings. By the time he’s 5 he’s going to have 60 of these things to listen to.”
One more user added: “Doing this with handwritten journals. Maybe because I was a history majority, but something about physical media and actual handwriting seems more memorable to me.”
Meanwhile, another user shared how they have been doing this for three years but only include birthdays, holidays or if anything major happens.
They said: “My oldest kids are 10, and the emails definitely drop off after a few years. I actually missed sending one on a birthday last year, but we were super busy.
“Make sure you tell the grandparents and aunts/uncles about it too so they can send something special every now an again.”