I hope I do not offend anyone with this post. It is merely to share some old cultural practices that I believe were created for some reasons.
When I was growing up, most families would never show their newborn or bring their newborn babies out. At most, only immediate family and very close friends or relatives get to see the infant.
Those days, the world wide web has not existed hence the only way to show images were via traditional media like television, magazines or newspapers.
I remember parents who sold their baby pictures and allowed their babies to be used for advertisements were bring frowned upon by the older generations. Some of the reasons provided are:
- life force energy (example aura) of the new born is weak as the newborn is still trying to adapt to the world
- there may be people who are jealous and look at the baby with bad thoughts. And some of these people who have great intensity can affect the health of the baby
- spirits and unseen beings exist everywhere. By taking the baby out, you are exposing your precious newborn to dark energies that may such the life force of the baby, resulting in illness. Erm, some may even follow y’all home
Slowly as my friends become parents many started to dismiss these old practices as mere superstitious beliefs. Even at the pre era of Facebook and Instagram, people around me would be taking their new born infant to crowded shopping complexes, sightseeing and even on a plane to travel. It is not common to see infants of just a few days old (still very pinkish) being paraded by their proud parents.
With the emergence of social media, Instagram, Facebook and blogs, these practice become widespread. In fact, some parents even capitalize on their baby for making profit, starting blogs and sharing their lives to the world. After gaining followers, they started to accept product endorsements or advertising.
I know of a few people who constantly parade their child, from the time the child is born (we are talking about still being enclosed in placenta fluid, straight from the mother’s womb!), and throughout the growing years, photos and videos are posted by the parents in Facebook.
The one thing odd that struck me- the child seemed to be sick quite often. There is one lady I know who constantly posted updates of her son in and out of hospital. Hence if you find your child is sick often, it may be best not to have the photos of your child plaster all over your social media accounts.
Sending the wrong message to the child
Even if you considered the above to be mere superstitious, ok let’s talk logic. Some people always create a picture of a happy family and upload in their social media accounts. The number of likes and interaction is important to them….. almost like a validation of their feelings of self worth. If a particular post does not garner that much of likes, it would get them down.
In some cases, the child is often made to pose for photos and videos. When the child, being innocent do not seem to ‘cooperate’, the parents may get frustrated and may resort to withdrawing their care and love. Or sometimes the parents are too busy ‘setting things up’ and the child is being neglected. This may make the child learn from a young age that in order to get the approval and love from their parents, he/she need to always keep up happy face, make funny faces and pose or do things that can get attention (which can get a lot of likes or have the post go viral for the parents).
I dread to think what would become of the child when he/she grows up.
The happiest families I know are not active on social media
Friends whom I am close to and I know well with close knitted happy family are surprisingly not active in social media. I mean, they have Facebook accounts and such, but most are hardly posting anything. When I hang out with them, most of the time none of us post on our social media accounts on our outings.
I have done a video earlier related to this topic. In the video below, I mentioned about the evil eye. I also share on separation black magic (sihir pemisah in Malay language) which is said to be used by jealous people mainly to separate couples. Many ladies claimed to have their marriages broken by such evil spells being placed on their husband.
It is said evil spells may work if there are already cracks in the marriage and the person targeted is not strong spiritually. Regardless of whether such thing exists or not, in the world many people would be jealous and envious to see others better than them. People who love to ‘share’ may end up attracting a lot of animosity. In that case, would it be better just to remain a little low profile?
