Microblog: Passwords
A friend shared her log-in and password to a particular online system so that my husband and I could check out the service.
I was struck by the fact that her password was the name of one of her children.
Using a child’s name as password is not the unusual, surely most people do this (and really shouldn’t, easy to hack) but what if the name of the child is a child you could not raise either due to premature death or adoption? Is that equally common?
I smiled a bit both at the sadness of it and also the fact that for years my password to one of my online sites has been my daughters amended name with a series of other characters. Every time I type that into the system (that I am on every day) something inside me winces. I have often wondered if I should change this, if having her name as my password was a curse or a blessing.
Anyone else do this? Use your surrendered children’s names as passwords?
Yes, after we were reunited. And now that the situation is blown up, I’ve changed them all. I don’t want to type her name everyday. Too painful.
I use both my boys names and dob in some combination or the other. It works on two levels, I can always remember them, and for safety sake. I would say that even my closest friends and even Jeff couldn’t tell you both of their full names and dates of birth.
It doesn’t make me sad at all. I have pretty well incorporated both of them into my daily life. Not in a mournful way, but in a way that I am grateful for their existence in my life, however short and they are just a part of me. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes the loss of them is overwhelming even 27 and 10 years later, but somewhere along the line it became manageable.
Okay, I just realized you may have been talking about me. I forgot I gave R my netflix password. Doh!
I used my son’s name for quite a while after we reunited, changed it when things took a turn for the worse. Anyway, I came up with one I can remember but that is also safer, harder for anyone to figure out.