Summary

Walid Al Otaibi, an engineering project manager in Germany, is writing letters to his son filled with memories, stories, and advice, intending to compile them into a book for his son's 16th birthday.

Abstract

Walid Al Otaibi, inspired by Omar Saif Ghobash's "Letters to a Young Muslim," has embarked on a personal project to document his son's life and his experiences as a parent through letters. These letters, which include both positive and challenging moments, are accompanied by photos and are stored digitally for longevity. Otaibi plans to present these collected memories and life lessons as a book to his son when he turns sixteen, aiming to maintain a connection and provide a tangible piece of their family's history and his guidance through life.

Opinions

Digital photography's ease has led to an overabundance of photos without attached memories, which Otaibi finds less meaningful than curated storytelling.
Otaibi values the personal touch of handwritten letters but acknowledges the practicality of digital storage for long-term preservation.
He believes in the importance of sharing both good and difficult experiences to provide a well-rounded perspective on life.
The act of writing these letters is not just for his son's future reflection but also serves as a therapeutic outlet for Otaibi to express his feelings and experiences as a parent.
Otaibi is uncertain about how his relationship with his son will evolve as he grows into a teenager, but he hopes that these letters will keep him involved in his son's life, regardless of any changes.

On Writing

Writing Letters to My Kid

A Nice Gift for his 16th Birthday

One of my favorite memories growing up was photo night. It was the day we sat down as a family and browsed our old pictures, either as photographs or as slides in a slide show.

My parents told us the story of every picture. They knew the location in which the photo was taken, and they knew the occasion.

They did not have 1000s of pictures of us. They had one album for my sibling and one album for me. Other than that, it was random slides from random occasions.

My son is now five years old, and I have 3500 photos of him on my phone. My wife has at least 10000 pictures, and the amount and ease of digital photo-taking make it hard to attach a memory to every photo.

I do not want to only share photos with my kid. I want to share memories, I want to share stories. The ease of digital photography is ruining this.

That’s why I’ve decided to start writing letters for my kid. Each letter involves a dear memory to me. To each letter, I’ll attach a photo or two.

The Inspiration

After reading Omar Saif Ghobash’s book titled Letters to a Young Muslim, I was inspired to do the same for my kid. Ghobash’s book is a collection of letters he wrote to his son, a young Muslim in today’s world.

I loved the idea after reading Ghobash’s book, and I decided to use the same format to share my stories and advice to my son. It is up to my son in the future to determine whether to publish the letters or not. What I’m writing is personal; thus, only he has the right to publish the personal stories about him.

The Memories

I do not share only good memories with my kid. I try to share defining moments in general. In each letter, I share my views and feelings with him too.

I wrote a letter about the day he was born. I documented his first dentist trip. I poured my heart out on the day he broke his wrist. I will write about his first day at school, his first sports competition, and his first music recital too.

I’m not only sharing photos and memories with him. I’m also writing letters with my experiences and views. I even wrote about the lockdown, and what it meant for us as a family, how it turned out to be a good time for us to reconnect and rediscover ourselves.

Son, you are rocking your Spider-Man mask in this pandemic.

The Format

sharing and save keeping memories for over ten years is not an easy task. The platform and the format need to be checked and maintained for this extended period.

I’ve decided to store the letters on Dropbox — any cloud service is sufficient. Each year gets a folder, and each letter is a word file (I use Microsoft Word — you can use any other text editing software. I named the word files as follows:

YYYYMMDD-Title.xlsx 
20200725-dentisttrip.xlsx

A good friend told me to do a couple of letters as handwritten ones. He highlighted that written letters have a personalized character in them, and they will add to the value of this memory collection. I couldn’t agree more. However, keeping handwritten notes for this period might be difficult.

I decided to store my handwritten letters in two different ways. I keep the paper version in my safe in a designated notebook, and I scan them and save them to dropbox as pdfs too.

My idea is to give my son all of these letters as a book when he turns sixteen years old. This book is my present to him, a gift that took 16 years in the making. It contains memories, life-lessons, and random thoughts. It is a way to contribute to his young adult life, it will show him how we felt in his upbringing, and it should highlight that he can always talk to us regarding anything at any time.

The Takeaway

This story simply presents one of the ways I’m personal with my kid. It is one of the ways I’m using to shape his mind and prepare him for the future ahead.

We never know what the future holds for us. It is, therefore, crucial to making sure that we connect with our kids.

I connect with my son daily at the moment. I do not know how this will change when he is a teenager. I want to remain a part of his life, even if it is only through a book.

Walid Al Otaibi -WAO- works at an engineering company in Germany as a Project Manager. He manages mainly sustainable energy projects.

He comes from a multicultural background and is located in Germany since 2003. He is writing about Arab Culture, Multiculturalism, Finance, and Trending topics.