'Making memories': the scourge of modern parenting?

Meghan Markle has revealed how she's making memories for her children by creating them each a "time capsule". She has created "secret" email accounts for Archie, five, and Lilibet, three, and, "almost every night", she mails them a message.

Her messages could include a photo from that day, a little anecdote or a note of something funny that child said. "I used to have scrapbooks and photo albums but we're past that generation now," the Duchess of Sussex explained on "The Jamie Kern Lima Show" podcast. Archie and Lilibet don't have access to their accounts, so won't see the emails until "maybe when they're 16 or 18", and can look back on them "and go, 'Oh my gosh, she has loved us so much!'"

'Small, everyday moments'

The Duchess' nightly ritual is "particularly meaningful", said Daniella Gray in Newsweek, because, unlike so much parental memory-making, "it doesn't focus exclusively on milestones or achievements". Instead, Markle is collecting a treasure trove of the "small, everyday moments which can typically get lost in fast-paced family life".

Her emails will become a "breadcrumb trail of identity" for her children, Dorcy Porter, founder of the Conscious Co-Parenting Institute, told Newsweek's Gray. They will be "a reminder that they were always loved, always witnessed. That's not just emotional, it's foundational."

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This could be the best parenting idea Meghan's ever had, said Charlotte Cripps in The Independent.

Piling on the pressure

But there's a danger it could set "unrealistic parenting standards" for others, and add to the pressure to "make memories" from every day.

The social-media "cult of making memories" is one of the "more nauseating phrases to emerge from social media", said Claire Cohen in Vogue. We all do our best to preserve memories for our kids but there's a "huge difference between Pritt Sticking a few pictures into a notebook" and having them wake up on their 16th birthday to "somewhere north of 4,000 emails to read".

"Bad days, mess, and intolerance" are all a part of family life but you wouldn't know it from all those "perfect family shots on Instagram", said The Independent's Cripps.

This constant sharing online under the "core memory" hashtag is all part of the expectation that parents "spend ever more time and money educating and enriching their children", said Claire Cain Miller in The New York Times. Last year, the US surgeon-general even issued a warning, classifying parental stress as "an urgent public health issue – putting it in the same category as cigarettes and Aids" and citing the "intense culture of comparison, exacerbated by the internet".

Perhaps, rather than copying Markle daily missives, "a photo dump in one email once a year" is more attainable for the average parent, said Cripps. "At the end of the day, it's a wonderful gift" to your children, "and it's never too late".