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On Sharenting

Watched Zarna Garg on Prime Video recently and found her entertaining. There is a lot of oversharing that makes up her material - which is not so unusual about comedians. Family and friends have to get used to it I guess. It was interesting to see her daughter's perspective on the content that is strictly speaking not her mother's right to share. I have written plenty about J here and continue to do so. It is my log of memories as a mother - little events that are intense in the moment but fade in intensity over time. 

It was always my desire to capture that moment as it happened so it would be there long after the impact and memories of it had faded. Reading back a decade or more, I see my own evolution as a person, a woman and a mother. There is intrinsic value in that for me and hopefully J as well. I have been zealous about respecting and protecting her privacy because that is a line I have no right to cross. 

But there is a bigger reward in keeping your child's identity unknowable when you are in the business of sharing things about them with the world. You can be completely free - there is nothing to feign, pretend or hold back because the cast of characters are all unknowable to those with whom you share. In J's childhood I was grateful for the wisdom of the crowds that either commented on something I wrote or reached out directly via email. The reader and I would never know each other in real life but their words of support and counsel did help J and I. 

Watching Zarna in action gave me a lot to think about - she is clearly talented and it would be a shame if she could not share what she has with the world. Yet, it begs the question if her children's lives have to be part of what gets those laughs. She has a lot else to say that does not involve them and she is funny in those instances too. More jokes about desi aunties and uncles, the Spelling Bee and the population of India are very welcome. She can have an entire segment dedicated to the skin tone color-wheel and how that impacts a woman's prospects in arranged marriage. 

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