My kids all have their own Gmail accounts. Actually, two accounts apiece. One user name is respectable and the other is more playful. I sign them up for them shortly after they are born because I'm crazy like that. As Claire has gotten old enough, she has occasionally used hers to email grandparents and such. I'm pretty sure my kids are going to thank me someday for getting them addresses ASAP so they aren't stuck with some user name that is followed by twelve impossible to remember numbers to make it unique.
But speaking of numbers at the end of an email address making it hard to remember, lately I'm having a problem. The kids' accounts all forward to my email and I'm getting email for some other Claire with the same last name. She is apparently some sucker whose mother DIDN'T sign her up for an address soon enough, so hers must have some numbers after it. But apparently she doesn't remember this. She thinks she owns the address with no numbers after it. How do you not know your own email address? I can understand one or two mistakes, but how exactly do you not notice that you haven't received things you're expecting? Important things!
She appears to now be a senior in high school considering various colleges. She lives in Georgia and attends Baylife Church. She is not getting her church newsletter. Nor is she getting messages from her chemistry study group. She is not getting her J.Crew ads. Or several other store ads. But worst of all, she is not getting info about deadlines for online registration to Duke University, Vanderbilt, and Georgia Tech.
I am also now in possession of her login names for these online registrations and, since OBVIOUSLY I know her first and last name, I'm pretty sure I could reset the password on most of her accounts. But I'm not going to. She's lucky I'm a nice person. I really do hope she's not missing all these deadlines that I keep getting emailed about.
Also, I hope none of these universities find out about all of this. Do you really think someone will believe you are Duke material if you can't figure out your own email address???
how did you set them up with the age requirements? did you just use your birthday?
ReplyDeleteby the time our kids need email accounts, maybe gmail will be passe?? i should probably sign them up for some accounts anyway ... now you've got me thinking...
ReplyDeleteVery nice. We do the same thing. All of our kids have gmail accounts with their name although our middle child did require a middle initial :(
ReplyDeleteIt isn't my kids who get other people's e-mail though. It is me. I have gotten all kinds of crazy important stuff. I think the day I got the scan of a tax return was the time I was the most tempted to mess with the person who can't remember his e-mail address. Just last week I nearly filled out a survey for the service of some poor schmuck's Volvo. I don't understand these people... I try to be nice and let the sender know when I can, but it gets old.
That is the joy of having our own web presence. We use dvhart.com through google apps that way I have the joy of easy gmail use but a fairly distinct email with no numbers. And my kids can all have their name no problem as long as someone continues to maintain the site. :-)
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ReplyDeleteI get email for some dumb woman who always forgets that she doesn't own [first_initial][last_name]@gmail.com. Most of the time it's from her church group and I have to email her and tell her to knock it off.
ReplyDeleteI bought the .com domains for my kids' names, so when they start needing email access, they can make up any address at their-name.com. (Which means they'll never be stuck with agibby54321@gmail.com.) Eight bucks a year for the next 18 years is totally worth that to me.
With your last name, that's unfortunately quite a bit trickier, but mine is much less common, and I've been able to snag all of the domains we've needed so far. (When we're naming a baby, I always check to see if the domain is available first.)
Indeed, our last name makes any kind of uniqueness virtually impossible. To get anything halfway decent for my kids, their middle names had to be involved. SIGH... It's a good thing I REALLY love M cuz I don't really love his last name!
ReplyDeleteI have about a couple bmurdock's that I get email for (barbara and bob, mostly). Same thing, they are lucky I'm a nice person, otherwise I could be doing all kinds of things with various accounts of theirs.
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