Do any adoptive parents post pics of DCs on Facebook??

[Scruffybear]

I have 2 DCs, full siblings, both adopted (at under 12mths), I have never posted any pics of them to my Facebook account, although I have privacy settings such that only my friends can see pics. Often after family gatherings family ask whether I will put any on there, and I always just email one or two pics directly to the key people as I worry about pictures ending up seen by birth family in some random twist of fate if they were out there on a social networking site.
Am I being over cautious tho?? Given everyone who could see the pics is aware of the issues? My DCs cousins certainly benefit from a closer rship with nanas and aunties due to them seeing pics of them doing stuff, and I would love to share Like this if it wasn't risky. I know the wider family think we're over zealous and a close friend has even made a point of telling me of her other adoptive mum friend who posts pics on fb, (albeit not v v clear, facing forward shots of her DS.) iirc this was a mum who even moved house early on post adopting due to risks around proximity to birth family.

If you've adopted, what do you do? Or if you're a fb aficionado, thoughts would be v helpful.

I do but DS's birth family not in this country so no real concerns for me - sorry not very helpful!

Doesn;t really matter what anyone else does, does it? I don;t understand your freidns logic , you do what you feel comfortable with.

I wouldn't, but then I'm not a FB aficionado anyway.

Generally, I keep dd2 out of public gaze. For example, we were in a restaurant garden when a film crew was shooting scenes for Come Dine With Me. They were very taken with dd2 (who is cute) and wanted a background shot with her in it. I said no. The risk has to be miniscule, but I thought why bother taking it?

Having said which, I did agree recently to having a photo of our family in a national paper. Because it was useful for our family in other ways, and because the photographer agreed to disguise dd2's identity, and not use her name. I have had to trust him on that.

So my line is pretty much that any risk I take has to be justified. But we do have particular security issues to worry about, which isn't true for all adoptive families (though it certainly is for many).

No.
It is far too small a world for me to feel happy to take the risk.
I talk about dd on there by name, but am quite vigilant at birthday parties when I see someone with a camera.
My privacy settings are very high, but, that said, I will never completely trust Facebook.

My DS is from Russia so I don't think his BM would see him but our lawyers advice was to use the privacy settings on FB set to friends only and not to put pics on general web sites.

I don't post anything on FB, I don't think my boys birth parents would try and find us, but I don't want to risk it. It's for their protection.

You aren't being precious OP, you are looking after the welfare of your children.

No, I don't. And I only post very occasional, very veiled references to her in my status updates. It's just such a small world I don't feel we can take the risk, especially so soon into the adoption

I do post photos on Facebook, but my privacy setting is set so high that I can't be found by a general search of my name.
All my friends on FB are good friends or close family. I do ask everyone not to post pictures of us or tag us.
My girls have all been home many years though and their birth mother is no longer alive.

Hi Scruffybear I'm mum to a birth child and just wanted to say that I don't put pictures of my daughter on facebook.

I have always felt facebook for me was a way to connect with adults, either colleagues and people to do with work (I work for a charity) or with friends. Most people from my area know what my daughter looks like and of course family do, where as work colleagues etc and contacts through work don't know and don't need to know.

We have a small number of relatives around the country, most of whom are not on facebook, so we email photos very occasionally.

I never feel hard done by for not seeing other people's kiddy photos and I never feel I am depriving anyone by not putting up pictures of my daughter.

I guess my reasoning is that it is my choice to put up messages and links and I don't feel I need to add photos of my dd. Now we are contemplating adoption I am pleased I have done it this way so that I can continue to do that if we are fortunate enough to be able to adopt.

I guess I wanted to tell you just to say that it is not just parents who have adopted children who are cautious about new media and prefer to keep family life private - others do too.

As Happy Sunflower days, I don't completely trust facebook. Big organisations do make mistakes and I would not want to risk my photos being seen generally. There are a handful of photos of me where I have been tagged but I don't mind that. When a friend posted a photo of my daughter I politely asked her to remove it and said I didn't post of her there. And she did. No one has ever though me weird (to my knowledge!) for not putting up photos.

I don't post any photos of my DD on FB, unless her face is completely out of view I.e. a foot poking out of her pushchair. I don't refer to her by name. This is despite her birth parents having had no interest in her since birth.

Personally I wouldn't because of the issues already mentioned and because of specifics related to our soon to be adoptive children - but if it was different then I might.

With FB new settings since timeline came out then I think if a friend comments on your photo then no matter what your privacy settings are set to then their friends will be able to see they commented. Hope that makes sense!

Lots of my friends and family do with their birth children though as it is nice for family to see. And because of this I wouldn't want family to feel less involved so will email pics. You could look into using something like flickr which is login only but you could then share albums with friends and family but you can't search like in a network. I need to look into it more though!

Don't let people tell you what you should do though!! Everyone's different and has their own reasons.

No for one of mine as he is a protected child and she did not give consent.
The other 4 their BP'S know where we are anyway. Not much help am I?

I'm a mum to birth children only. I haven't adopted but im very cautious of photos on Facebook. My SIL posted some of my dd a while ago and I flipped out and asked her to take them down. I pointed out that I don't put pix up for everyone to see. It's so easy to save pics you have access to and to republish. How many times I've seen people saying that someone else took their phone and changed something/left fraped status etc. i don't know who her friends are etc.
In my view it's perfectly acceptable to not put pix up of other people in your life. If they are too young to have their own fb account they should probably not have their pic published on the web.

I have two adopted children & I don't have any photos or reference to them on Facebook whatsoever. Actually I feel almost jealous when I see photos of happy families on holiday or a day out as it reminds me that things are different for us however much we try to act like everyone else. I agree with a previous poster that it is a small world & I have always felt that my children's birth mother could find them easily. For example I have a friend who used to teach the birth mother although I have never told her.

I wouldn't have when they were younger, but I do now. Their names have changed, I don't have people I don't know well as fb friends and my privacy settings are to the maximum because of my job.

DD asks me to post pictures of her doing interesting things, to show her aunties and uncles .

Hi Scruffybear I did reply earlier but just wanted to say a friend just put a picture of my DD on facebook and now that she is older I am not so worried and so did not complain to them. But it made me realise that you have to think about this if people take pictures because for some people it is almost second nature to put photos up on facebook! As someone who has done voluntary editing I would ALWAYS seek permission to put photos in a newsletter but now it seems people just put them on facebook without a second thought!

If we had adopted a child I would be more cautious, I feel sure.

I must admit I get a bit sick of other people's baby and child photos on facebook. It just doesn't interest me and actually at times when I was struggling with my own fertility issues I wondered about de-friending the many parents of 3 or 4 kids who seemed to barrage us with their perfect families!

Now I am not as bitter and twisted as I was and have come to terms more with not having another baby and so I don't feel as threatened as I did by masses of photos.

Still, I must admit I still feel overwhelmed by lots of photos of other people's kids, I don't like to read how well they have all done at school and think it is crazy when people wish their 2 or 3 year olds kids happy birthday on facebook! They can't read!

I guess for me facebook is an adult domain and I want to read about people's news, and worthy causes, and people's funny jokes! I wonder if I am along in finding it hard to stomach all the photos!

What Italiangreyhound said. I am a birth mum and I have loads of people on Facebook that I hardly know now (school friends etc) and feel weird about putting up pics of my son.

Why not email pics to your family, or set up a family Flickr account with a password that you can share with them? That way you know who is seeing them. Really simple and nice for close family to download pics they like