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Baby Data


Given my line of work plus my natural affinity for it, I tend to drool over data and can even get obsessive about analyzing it. With that said, I am very glad that data is not part of my life outside work. Reading this Wired story about parents collecting all manner of data on their kids using high-tech tools and toys, I felt thankful it was not nearly as easy as clicking a button on the iPhone to collect data on J when she was an infant.

The sacred division between work and life would have been completely obliterated. Needless to say, it would have been a bad thing for both her and I. Instead of being there to enjoy her babyhood, I might have been engrossed in data capture and analysis. Largely for this reason, I did not videotape J when she was a baby - selfishly I wanted to savor those magic moments through my own eyes and preserve them in memory. To record did not seem nearly as important as enjoying the present. For parents like me, the article closes with some wise words of caution :

“Kids have been raised by parents without tools like this for generations,” O’Keeffe said. “What parents need is a good inoculation of common sense and some self-esteem, to realize that they can do this without a tool. Just because we have computers and hand-held devices, doesn’t mean we need a tracking device. What we need to do is look at our kids and realize they’re developing just fine.”

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Anonymous said…
" I did not videotape J when she was a baby - selfishly I wanted to savor those magic moments through my own eyes and preserve them in memory. To record did not seem nearly as important as enjoying the present".

Precisely. But your word painting makes up for that !

The same tendency in many clicking photos or taping while visiting Nature spots , bird sanctuaries. How ubiquitous those friendly intelligent crows are in Kolkata. To be woken up by their cawing is a priceless blessing!
6:08 AM
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