Here's a little secret: your kid won't be a YouTube star • He can be self-expressed on the web, but any viral plot ends on the shrink couch • Dad's voice

• Youtube young woman in action // Photo: Efrat Eshel

Bezeq's big internet survey, published last week, revealed that the most coveted profession for children over the age of 8 is "network star." A huge difference behind is a soccer player and a singer. An engineer and a doctor did not even enter the extended list this year, extinct from children's consciousness, just like the cops and firefighters we wanted to be back then in the 1980s.

I'd say it's sad, but it's the way of a world, and it doesn't slow down for those who are lagging behind. It is true that we as parents are not supposed to stop the progress of the next generation, probably a little more sophisticated than we are. But we're probably not supposed to push it into the digital inferno, which after all, we ourselves are still trying to grope.

In the last few weeks, Naama has started following some pretty obsessive YouTube people, especially those who specialize in "coop" dolls (and I'm really jealous of you if you have no idea what I'm talking about), and so I've been exposed to the world of network stars, who are not yet completely on the multiplication board .

As my hours of content viewing increased (even the background view eventually crept into consciousness), it became clear to me one thing: behind every smiling 8-year-old Youtuberti is the father or mother with a particularly frustrating career.

Yes, these mostly embarrassing productions are almost never the craze of a child who managed to impose his wishes on his parents, but only a necessary part of the mother or father's plan to create a new life for themselves, by the way they show everyone their child is the best in the world, and also earn Some of this money is said to grow on the Internet trees.

To me it is quite pathetic in total. Children have not accumulated enough data to make such a decision that could haunt them many years later (the network always remembers), and a parent is supposed to maneuver the child towards integration in a changing digital world just as he teaches him to cross a busy road.

I'm not against the phenomenon, by the way. YouTube, and social networks in general, are a great way to express the content we have, and find it hard to break out in normal social situations. I am sure, on the whole, that young biotubers are more fulfilling than most other children. But parental intervention and an attempt to turn a modern expression tool into a trampoline that will propel the family a few steps forward on the social ladder are a recipe for long-term psychological treatment, which will end in 2040 with a cited lawsuit that will bear child robbery.

Let me tell you a secret: your child won't be a YouTube star, and you won't win the lottery. But you can let him express himself online, just as you can sometimes send a lottery form. Just don't create a plot that will make it viral, or any other word you've learned sometime in the past decade. Let him shed what he has inside, and let go. Then he would go play football, class, or whatever kids don't play today.

And if he insists on being a star? Well, Purim is coming soon, and the new Shoshi Zohar costume collection already has a Taylor and Ben Zinnie costume.