If every pin is special, none of them are

I am starting to resent Pinterest.

Don't get me wrong. I love it. It is a wealth of ideas, and I use it exclusively for party planning and recipe-finding.

But I worry that soon we will all have the same decor (to be fair, this has been a fear of mine since the invention of the Internet, Mommy Bloggers, and Relief Society). The same parties. We'll play the same New Year's Eve Party games.

We will all be crafting robots. Our children will be churning out paper-plate panda bears and friendship bracelets like assembly-line workers.

If my Kindergartner comes to school without the specialized training that only elaborate schemes involving lamination, intricate scissor work, and hours of prep time done by me can provide (like memorization of the ABC's for instance), will they ever succeed? Or should I just give up now?

If my First Grader leaves the house with a square sandwich (remember those? I'd do a tutorial, but it might just blow your mind), baby carrots (NOT whittled into a working whistle), a cookie (chocolate chip - they're good and homemade, cause that's how I roll, but they are just the recipe on the back of the chocolate chips package, and they're just called 'chocolate chip cookies') and a water bottle (with the original label from the manufacturer attached - will she know I love her if I don't make a label declaring it for her mid-day break?) for lunch, will her future endeavors be compromised?

I fear the day every child brings a Kleenex box monster Valentine box and homemade valentines to school with clever sayings about goldfish or cake pops (oh, the cake pops!).

And what of simple pallets? The run on that market that Pinterest is creating will, I predict, cause the price of pallets to skyrocket. I wonder if in a few years people will be building things out of actual wood from the lumber store because it will be cheaper than using a pallet?

A few months ago, when I was planning Samera's birthday party, I had the oddest experience: A friend of mine asked what we were doing, and I began to explain. She kept oohing and ahhing over my explanations of very last-year things (Samera refused to be swayed. I tried. A baking party? Yes, very cute. But it's been done. Over and over. Apparently kids aren't as concerned about originality as adults are. I should remember this.).

Her enthusiasm was distressing me. I couldn't get a good read on why she was so excited. Was she mocking me? She finally exclaimed over my creativity and asked how in the world I had thought of it all.

What kind of mind game was this???

And then:

Ah. The last person on earth to be introduced to Pinterest.

It all made sense.

and

It was so confusing for me.

I wanted to bear my testimony of the wonders of computerized pinning and how her life would be enhanced,

but

I also wanted to tell her to cherish her naivete. To bask in glorious ignorance of the 500 uses of hydrogen peroxide for as long as possible.

Because there are some bells that you simply can't un-ring.

Although I'm sure someone will figure out how to eventually, and they'll do a tutorial. It will probably involve coconut oil or protein powder. Or an Altoids tin. And possibly an armoire*.

And we'll all pin it.


*seriously, why do people assume I have hundreds of armoires lying about my house, empty and useless? If I have the money for an armoire (have you ever priced armoires? Those puppies are spendy!), I have the money for whatever piece of furniture you can make an armoire into.