My Kelloggs Child

In the midst of exam preparation, I just received one of the most bewildering emails to date and I don’t think it’s spam…

Subject: Parent/Guardian Permission Needed for Kellogg Online Registration

Double-take. Just for the record, I would know if I were a parent or guardian, and I am neither.

I opened it out of plain curiousity, and as far as I can tell, it’s a legitimate email from Kellogg’s telling me how my child (who I guess is twelve, judging by the choice of username), who opened an email account she never told me about, is seeking to enter some Pop-Tarts® Insider program. Being under 13, however, she needs parental permission before Kelloggs will activate her account.

My supposition is that this sneaky child of mine thought she would insert some random email in the blind belief that this is sufficient to open her account… only to find that an email gets sent to the parental account for confirmation. Good on Kelloggs for having more security than that. Not that that would stop me — if I were her, I’d be opening a fake parental email right about now. Oh, the slyness of the internet generation.

What puzzles me is how she came up with my email in the first place; it’s really not the most common combination of letters you’d put together when first inserting a random email. Or maybe she did make a fake parental account and promptly misspelled it to give mine. One can only guess — I’ll never know, because I went and rejected her application to Pop-Tarts® Insider. I’ve no doubt she’ll manage to find a way in if she’s determined, or perhaps she’ll check with her real mother and type in the correct email address this time. It was, however, very surreal to find my only options were to accept, reject, or delete my child’s account. Not a line about “if this email was sent to you by mistake, please click here”. I actually felt responsible for her.

At least now she’s been rejected, she’ll know that something went wrong if it was a genuine mistake and she needs to learn Mummy’s email address better.

Goodness, that’s enough parenting for one day. I think I can pass up motherhood for another five to ten years. Is it even possible to categorize this post? No, it isn’t.