To be angry/upset about FB 'congrats'

[44PumpLane]

I know in the grand scheme of life it's not a big deal, and if this is the biggest thing in life I have to worry about I'm hugely fortunate.

However, I'm upset and angry that when I popped on FB last night, two acquaintances had posted their congratulations on my pregnancy!

My husband and I only use our FB pages to keep up with friends and family around the country/world. We don't have relationship statuses on there, we don't post lots of pictures of our lives- we are in the process of telling the people we want to know that we are pregnant but we were never intending to put it on FB.

An old family friend and the mother of a friend posted last night- luckily near midnight so very few people would have seen. I've shut down my FB account for the time being- but who does that?!? I mean really?!? There is literally nothing on the page insinuating anything is going on in my life- if you truly want to congratulate me them PM me!

I feel so angry and upset to think some family who we've not yet told may see it. Plus it's our bloody news to tell!!! Grrr!

Sorry just needed to rant!

If you didn't ask people to keep it quiet, you can't really be surprised if they didn't.

Also many thanks for the congratulations and the sympathy

I appreciate all the replies people have posted and all the different perspectives, but it still is nice to know I'm not alone in my thinking x

I'm heading towards fifty & quite capable of using facebook (& Twitter & run an online business) but I do have older friends who do the same as above. Post everything on walls.

Fair enough op.

YANBU....I am v cautious on fbook and only congratulate someone on a birth/pregnancy/engagement/New job when they've posted the news themselves. I found out my gran had died because my brother posted it on fbook!

I also get annoyed when relatives spread the news to random people - my dm told my sister's friend's mum and then justified it by reminding me said person had taught dh A level maths. Oh, she def needs to know then!

I have friends under 30 who do the same - it's a person thing not an age thing.

I'm a little bit on the fence with this one. Both my children's births were posted on FB by my fil before dh or I had chance. I was a little bit upset because I wanted to announce their births myself. (And both times he put awful pics of me a few minutes after giving birth when I looked awful!) However, I had never asked him not to so I didn't say anything.

On the other hand, what's the point of having FB if you never use it? There is a happy medium between living your life through social media and keeping in touch with everyone.

You can change your privacy settings so no one can post to your wall and you can delete posts from your wall as well.

" my dm told my sister's friend's mum and then justified it by reminding me said person had taught dh A level maths. Oh, she def needs to know then!"

Loving the tenuous link (though obviously would have been unimpressed in real life)!!!

YABU.

I don't think that you're being unreasonable. DH and I specifically told people not to tell anybody until we'd told everybody that we wanted too, we also told them no FB comments and to spread that if/when they told people. Most people were great, I had a couple of PMs from extended family and only one person posting on my wall (older relative who can't use FB!) luckily I deleted it quickly. It was only after my five month scan the other day that I outrightly said that I was pregnant on there, even then that was on a related status rather than an announcement of sorts.

I really hate people taking it upon themselves to share others news, especially people who should know better! I know that other people don't think but just because they share their lives it doesn't mean that the rest of us do or want too. I'm not looking forward to trying to limit photos of baby when it arrives either, I don't mind the occasional token snaps but DH and I have numerous family members who think nothing of posting lots and lots of photos all of the time and we are hoping to keep that to a minimum with our child (like we do for ourselves!)

I think YAB. A bit U. They didn't do it to upset you, they did it to congratulate you. They didn't know it was to be kept quiet as you hadn't mentioned it to the person who told them.
In this day and age news travels fast. And I say that as someone aged 50 who would not post my intimate thoughts on someone's wall, but who does recognise that news spreads now instantaneously due to the power of technology. You should have PMd your aunt At the same time as you told your other close people if you wanted her to know :-).

My dh's niece posted on FB that she was devastated that her grandad (my fil) had died. He'd died in the night, we knew at around 5:30am, she posted at 7am before we'd had time to ring my DSS (so another grandchild). Luckily he didn't see it but my dh gave her short shrift about letting family know first before she started putting 87 shit memes on FB.

I think it's just different personalities. I never understand the 'we wanted to tell people first, it's our news to share' approach. I just don't 'get' it. I don't feel that way about anything - but I know others do so I am careful about tagging/congratulating etc. But it's taken reading threads like this to understand how strongly some people feel.

I also don't get the sharing everything on facebook. I use it a lot, but there are certain things I don't share. Occasionally someone refers to something I wouldn't share & I just answer obliquely or remove the post or change the privacy settings (you don't have to ask, you can delete it yourself) & drop a PM saying why - I try to word it sensitively though as I know whoever did it wouldn't have meant any harm.

There isn't a right or wrong way to use facebook & you really can't assume everyone will use it the same way as you.

I am a very light user of FB. I have never posted a status and I look at the top half dozen posts on my wall once or twice a month and even I know that some people can't wipe their arse without posting.

If you tell people news that is not completely dull and not absolutely unpleasant then people will share it and a lot of peoples go-to for sharing is social media. If you don't want news shared you need to spell that out.

mrsdevere

YANBU. I would never ever comment on a pregnancy or a birth unless the parents involved had already put something on Facebook. I did tell people with both pregnancies that I wouldn't be mentioning it at all, and they thankfully mostly stuck to that. My auntie wrote something, but thankfully I was online at the time and swiftly deleted it.

TBH, I think YANBU.

If anything personal happens to a friend, but there isn't anything on their FB status, then I PM them because there is likely to be a reason it's not out in the open.

But others don't.

I have a friend here who lives her entire life on FB, it seems - I hope her younger children aren't going to mind that every little thing they do is plastered across her FB page! I still PM her first, just in case.

And then there was the friend whose DH was tragically killed on the road in an accident, and most of her friends found out because of the condolences messages that started to appear on her FB page. Again, I messaged one of the friends she was with at the time to ask what had happened and was my friend ok - but it's Not OK, IMO, to broadcast that kind of sensitive info all over FB without at least checking with the person involved first :(

Sensible to shut your FB page down, I think, until you've contacted everyone who should be told in person first.

Yeah rather unhelpfully I tried to delete the posts but FB chose that particular moment to stop working and wouldn't allow me to delete myself!

Yanbu.

MrsDeVere

OP I understand why you are annoyed but its not personally something I would get my knickers in a twist over. I have a friend who ends every text with 'nothing on fb please' which I find more annoying!

I get why it's annoying. But I can also see why they thought it was ok.

Some people post everything on Facebook. It's entirely normal for them. And since you told them you were pregnant, they assumed everyone, who you felt you wanted to tell face to face, knew too.

Personally I put hardly anything on FB. Loads of people didn't know I was pregnant until I had ds and posted a photo. These are people I knew from old places of work etc.

But I also understand that for some people FB is an everyday normal form of communicating. And so if I don't want something on there, I am explicit about it.