London - Sometimes when I make a working-mom guest appearance at school pick-up on Fridays, a parent I’ve never met before will wander up and ask me any number of personal questions. They may ask if Mabel, my three-year-old, has made it through her late-onset terrible twos yet. They’ll inquire if her Frozen addiction is fading or how nursery is going.
Once a fellow mom even asked how my husband was recovering from his vasectomy.
I never say “none of your business” because strangers know a lot about our family life. They’ve been exposed to the six of us for over five years in this column, followed me on Twitter or read my editor’s letter in ELLE.
People I’ve never met, or will ever meet, are aware of the minutiae of my day because I’m what is now labelled an “over-sharer”. I’m part of the TMI epidemic (too much information, as my nearly-teenager says).
Nervous of secrets, I’m a minor perpetrator of this latest cultural crime.
Recently US comedian and writer Lena Dunham, known for appearing naked on her hit-show Girls, was criticised for revealing intimate details of her childhood relationship with her younger sister.
Actually criticised is too soft a word — Dunham was demonised for “over-sharing” in her new book, and wrongly in my opinion.
Often when women share personal memoirs their words are trivialised as attention seeking. I notice that if men do this it is thought brave, as they are believed to rarely offer up emotion.
Anyway, predictable sexism aside, what does this new open-doors world mean for future generations? What’s the legacy of metaphorically, and often literally, undressing in public? Is it a bad thing? I don’t think so.
My lovely dad, who has rejected Facebook because it is “just people putting up pictures of babies”, is baffled by my need to share. For his generation the thought of revealing what they had for brekkie is akin to breaking the Official Secrets Act.
But for my four children, it is accepted as second nature. On Sunday I listened to them discussing the latest nude pictures of Kim Kardashian (“like those hairless cats” I overheard one of them comment).
They seemed to know what Miley Cyrus was doing right that minute, and my eldest was regaling the other three with news of Benedict Cumberbatch as if he were a member of the family.
Their knowledge extends to everything from the toilet habits of these people’s pets to details of their latest gluten-free meal.
But what is interesting is how all this “attention-seeking behaviour” doesn’t affect what my youngsters feel about the celebrity doing all the sharing. It’s white noise. They have no strong opinion either way on Kim’s rear.
This surprises me.
For them, being constantly connected to the worlds of famous people is most under-whelming. Maybe creating a life where everything is out in the open and accessible is, in reality, refreshingly powerful. Secrets, after all, can be dangerous. “Everyone is just being themselves,” as my ten-year-old observed. “No one is shy any more.”
Maybe because I don’t have emotionally vulnerable adolescents yet, the influence of these relentlessly honest stars (one must assume most of it is honest as so much of what is offered up is visual) has yet to hit home.
My eldest daughters, age 12 and ten, couldn’t have been less shocked when they witnessed Hannah Montana turn from sweet country singer into her twerking overly sexualised alter ego, Miley Cyrus.
If anything, I have seen only good things come of over-sharing. My pre-teen’s anxiety about her troubled skin has been soothed by a young girl, Zoe Sugg, who knows a lot about make-up, has over four million YouTube followers on her Zoella vlog and goes out with a boy called Alfie Deyes, who has nearly as many on his YouTube offering.
I don’t agree with claims this overload of so-called “dirty details” is placing new pressure on youngsters to live up to ideals, copy what they see online, or vomit up their own intimate details.
Mine would be patronised by that attitude - they seem much more in control of their own personal and private identity than adults give them credit for.
And it’s not as if those “broadcasting” are in my front room. You don’t have to listen do you?
LORRAINE Candy is Editor-in-Chief of Elle magazine.
Daily Mail