My cousin has a large studio photograph of our grandmother in her wedding dress. It looks as though it is a still from a dream sequence in an old film because the edges are so soft. I estimate half a centimetre of vaseline made its way onto the lens; not that granny needed her edges flattering in this way. Instagram and its ilk have put into the hands of any ordinary Joe or Josephine a bag of tricks even the most professional photographers of the past would have killed for.
The first integrity to be sacrificed in a post-truth world is photographic honesty. If a picture tells a 1,000 words in a world of social media every single one must, like Eden's serpent, flatter to deceive: sexy; silky; slim; smooth; succulent. No grey skies and no fat faces. And so when a poster wants to assert their own skill or the authentic power of their undoctored image we get the lyrical distillation of the Trumpian age: #Nofilter
To me, however, the irony of the no filter swank is that it only serves to emphasise the preceding inauthenticity of the boasting poster's output. Seeing that ubiquitous claim on yet another snap of a completely unexceptional sunset did, however, foster a fathering thought.
When your child is a baby it is difficult to live your life vicariously through theirs unless you have some very serious regression issues. But the last three months have really struck home for me how quickly the decisions you make for your baby start shaping them. Breast or bottle? Parent or childcare? Home or nursery? And this is all long before you start dictating their GCSE choices and the cut of their dinner jacket.
The Prophet Isaiah was onto this point a while back; as 64:8 puts it: But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. The temptation to mould comes hard and it comes fast but we must learn to distinguish forcing from guiding.
There is a charming photograph of my identical twin best men aged four wearing matching Oxford University crested t-shirts. I hardly need tell you that 20 years later they were not graduating from Fenland Polytechnic. In their particular case a firm parental hand on the tiller was no bad thing but what many people don't realise about tiger mothers is they can end up eating their child's soul.
At the moment I don't have a clue what fires burn in my baby's breast save that they are not the same that propel me through life. With that in mind the best thing I or any parent can do is facilitate no filter living.
