Women subsumed into their children

[Xenia]

We certainly must guard against woman as only mother and nothing else

www.ft.com/cms/s/2/0bf95f3c-f234-11e1-bba3-00144feabdc0.html#axzz25Ieiea9E

[rainbowinthesky]

I have never understood why people use their children's photo on Facebook or refer to their mumminess in their user name.

[SchmancyPants]

That certainly is a very thought-provoking article.

[Salbertina]

Yes v insightful. Agree about the dinner party thing and all the boastful fb posts about kids...

[greenhill]

On FB your photo is used as your ID when you play games so many women "hide" behind either their children's photo or a cartoon character. Unfortunately there are a persistent number of chancers who want you to talk dirty on the chat board or make unwanted personal remarks about your appearance. It is also a signal to other mothers that you can just play a quiet game with them with no hassle, so is a useful code.

[Trills]

Yes, I get the feeling of wanting to say (very politely) that is not YOUR face.

[Mintyy]

I have a picture of my dc up because I am lazy and I hate (to the point of phobia) having my photo taken. If it offends you I will change it to one of my cat!

[OTheMarriedManatee]

I love Katie Roiphe - she's observant and always provocative.

[Trills]

I would rather see a cartoon character or a picture of your snazzy socks or something, at least then I know that you have chosen something to represent yourself rather than putting your child by default. Does that make sense?

[Salbertina]

Makes sense to me but guess all right to choose...
My choice is a particular flower- a special one, taken by me in a particular place which resonates with me. But who would know?! Just a flower..,

[Hulababy]

rainbowinthesky - I use DD's pic as my FB picture. I hate my photo taken ad rarely have pics of me. My DD's photos are far nicer than mine. It's as simple as that.

[BonnieBumble]

My status updates and comments are sometimes about my children but mostly about other things such as work, study, my thoughts of the day etc. However I have been guilty of using a photo of my children from time to time as my profile picture. Not because my identity is wrapped up in my status as a mother but because I am quite vain and don't want the whole world to know that I could do with a trip to weightwatchers.

I

[Hulababy]

I have chosen a photo to represent myself - my DD! She is very much an important part of me and someone who means a heck of a lot to me. She also looks very much like me when I was little anyway - just in more modern clothing.

[SoggySummer]

I can think of worse things to subsumed into other than your own kids if you are a mother tbh.

[StarlightMcKenzie]

Society does not take its responsibility and duty to raise its children, therefore it falls to the mothers!

If society cared more for my ASD boy, I'd have a life!

[Heartbeep]

Not thought provoking at all. For anyone who has a Facebook account, it's a pretty obvious observation.

What about friends who don't have children and post about their cats/dogs/guinea pigs/boyfriends/football teams/bands etc all the time, have they lost their identities too? I find them as irritating as the 'little johnny can swim 50m unaided at the age of 2' boasts (lies)...

It's a FB problem, not a motherhood problem. FB is for bragging and a sense of self importance. One would hope that FB is only one aspect of someone's life.

[Xenia]

1. At what age do people think their children should have the right to decide how and where their image is used?
   

1. This can indicate women are nothing but mothers when many are lots of other things too. That must be the feminist point.
   

3.Most fairly successful parents make a lot of efforts to keep their children out of the press, so indeed quite the opposite.

(My twitter picture is a picture of my island near the equator)

[peanutMD]

It annoys me when people say they put photos of their children as their profile picture because they don't like getting their picture taken or because they dont like everyone seeing their picture...

Did you stop to give your child the option?

Have you considered that your children may not like getting their photos taken or plastered on the internet?

[Greythorne]

I think this article is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Yes, women use pics of their kids on FB but then most people use FB for family and friends. I have never seen a single pic of a child being used as a surrogate for the mother on LinkedIn.

Two, idealising the way parents raised their children in the past is just dumb. Women of my mother's generation were not told that they were risking their child's health, risking obesity, etc by the way they fed their babies. Women were not told that if they failed to bring their children up properly and they became delinquents, it would be their fault.

Women today are more invested in their kids because they know they will be vilified if their children grow up 'imperfectly'.

This is a slick op ed but without much foundation.

[Sausageeggbacon]

As a mother my kids are the most important thing in the world to me. If you don't want pics of my kid my message is unfriend me because I am not going to change for other people. Frankly I would be surprised if many mothers would give a damn about what other people think.

[Trills]

There is no way for me to tell if you have actively chosen a picture of your child as the picture that best represents you (and in general I am sceptical that it is) or whether you have done it by default because you think that your child is the most important thing about you - that there is no aspect of "you" that people would want to see.

[Trills]

I'm not saying that I don't want to see pictures of your child in general, I'm saying that I find it odd when people's profile picture, the picture that says "this is me" is a picture of a different person, a person who is not them.

[plus3]

Do you think Xenia, that you could find another way to define yourself other than in terms of how much money you have made?

Agree with idea of when your children decide on how their image is used though.

[Bonsoir]

That is a very bad article indeed!

I am personally a lot more worried about people spending time on Facebook (which I think is the work of the devil) than whether they are overly involved with their children.

[Empusa]

I get where the article is coming from, but it's also assuming that people choose their FB as a representation of themselves. Which isn't the only reason people pick those photos.

I know for me the picture I choose depends on a variety of things. Sometimes it is a representation of me. Sometimes it's just my current favourite image (either due to it being technically good, artistically good, or just fun to look at) - understandably sometimes it is my DC. Currently it is a photo of my mum. A lot of the time it is some of my artwork. Recently it was a vector graphic I'd done of a monster. Did I pick it because I thought it represented me? Hardly, it just made me smile.

[Hulababy]

peanutMn/xenia - my DD quite likes having her photo taken and she has no problem at all with her photo being on my FB. She often chooses her favourite image infact. She also sets my wallpaper pics on my iPhone and iPad to her photo most of the time - either that or pictures of meerkats.She's not vain but like most children I know - they are pretty photogenic and like posing for pictures. If Dd asked me not to use her photo as she gets older than I would respect that - still wouldn't be a picture of me though, unless it was one of me as a child.