banning photos of my DC on SM

[WispaGoldsshouldcomeinmultipac]

Afternoon all!

Popular topic, just looking for advice on how to deal with the fall out of deciding that there are to be no photos of my DC on SM.

MIL went mental - apparently DP and I have stopped her showing off her grandchild - mutual decision from us both and other family members have said they'll post regardless.
AIBU? Is it a thing to do? DP and I are quite private and we don't have the time to be policing social media to report pictures.

How did other people deal with this? TIA

@AngelasAshes PREACH!! more my DPs thinking than mine but 100% agree xx

The fact that they said they would post pictures regardless is a big worry tbh - and I think you need to make that known to them. My MIL put up our scan picture without asking (we didn’t post it on SM ourselves) which we weren’t impressed with, we asked her to take it down and she did - she learned from it and I kind of set the tone in terms of our expectations without being a big drama. We asked for no pictures to be put up of DS when he was a newborn, no problem. We share a lot on a family WhatsApp group and it’s fairly rare anyone puts one on Facebook. After I put a picture up on Facebook, others did too but no one went overboard with it. If my family behaved like yours though I would be tempted to do the same as you and say no pictures at all. You can post something like ‘Had a great day with my new Grandson, he’s so adorable etc’ without attaching a picture.

Didn’t you text ‘MIL why are you showing strangers my womb?’

They don't have the right to "show off" their grandchild at the cost of your wishes.
They should respect your wishes regardless.
Myself and my DH are not on social media so we didn't want our DS on it.

If you need to get your point across simply advise the First photo you see on social media results in them having to hand in their phones into a box when they see your child 😂😂😂😂

Not sure what you can do about those who won't follow your wishes- and they will post more just to prove a point, making you look the awkward one.

I do know people who would love social media to be free of other people's grandchildren though!

We told family just before or first child was born that we didn't want any photos of the baby on SM. My brother and uncle both forgot when they wanted to proudly show off the new addition to the family and put photos on FB not just of the new baby but of me too looking rough as hell having just given birth! We asked for them all to be taken down PDQ and they respectfully obliged.

I find it really shocking that your family have said they won't respect your wishes on this. Maybe they don't understand the risks but I would explain to them your reasoning which might include the consent issue - child hasn't agreed to having embarrassing photos on line or any online presence at all for that matter - and the sexual predator issue - paedophiles accessing and using photos.
Then create a what's app group - granny can share with her friends that way too if she likes!
Best of luck - you are REALLY not being unreasonable.

I think it's really odd of them to try to insist that they will post the pictures anyway. I do have a theory that the most dedicated posters of pics of other people's kids are probably doing it instead of being active in the children's lives, but that falls down when I look at my parents who don't give a shit about my kids and also don't post pics of them!

My own kids have all said (when I asked them) that they don't want anyone posting photos of them online, so I have honoured that, but had real difficulty enforcing it with some of my in-laws, who "just don't see the harm".

@GreenTulips that is a bit how I felt 😄 lots of people show their scan pictures, I have no issue with that but for me personally it didn’t feel right and I thought it was very strange for her to post it since we hadn’t. This will sound agest (I suppose it is) but I feel that sometimes older FB users don’t quite understand that kind of unwritten protocol and how SM really isn’t a private space with just your ‘friends’ on there. But we get on really well so it was easily resolved, she was maybe a bit overexcited but like OP has said there is an element of ‘showing off’ to it which I don’t particularly like, and like we were kind of spoiling the fun by not letting her brag to her friends (she never said this but I can imagine she felt that way a bit).

I get it. But without specific reason i think its a massive shame

Why? Not everyone wants to live a vacuous life on social media. If the OP doesn't want her child's pictures splattered all over social media to be seen by people she doesn't know then she has every right to demand it. Her solution would be not to send any photos to anyone who abuses her trust.

No way should anyone be sharing your scan photo that you PM'd them! That's a complete invasion of YOUR privacy.

I would ask everyone on this thread what they do about school team photos or Xmas play/nativity photos, dance class photos etc. where the child would have to be removed from the group every time there's a photo call to avoid being in the local newspaper?

I totally get where you're coming from and DH and I have made the same decision.

We haven't shared DS's name, birthday or photos on SM. Only a couple vague photos of a baby in a pram on my Instagram which has high privacy settings.

We're lucky because PILs and my parents don't use SM and SIL & BIL have respected our decision despite sharing tons about their kids.

Main reason for our decision is that DH works in psychiatry and we want our SM presence to be minimal so that patients can not identify us, let alone our kid.

@DoubleTrouble99- Im impressed you have still got a local newspaper. Im not too bothered by grainy, unrecognisable photographs where there is no link to names or other information. SM is different - there is a name of the poster and relationships are incredibly easy to work out online.
Don't worry - I dealt with the scan photo. Along the lines of "why the hell do you think sharing my womb is appropriate?!"
I think it will be a case of showing off as a grandparent or other relative and not being an active part in DCs life.

*The kid is not old enough to consent so until then no-one post pictures of them on SM.

People don't want to find when they are 20-something going for a serious job that someone finds a goofy picture of them when they were 8.*

This, so much! Can you imagine if all your baby/kid pics were on the internet??

It's not the same as a grandparent carrying around a book of pics - which they can still do by the way! You are publishing online, hundreds of people can see them at the very least if you have tight privacy settings and if you don't then the sky is the limit. There was one case I remember when a woman was horrified to find out a picture of her kids had become a meme.

If you use social media to communicate, you can create a private group or DM. Or you can have a Flickr account or something just for family. This is your decision, you have made the right one IMO, but either way it is your child, your choice and your family should respect it. I'd be livid if I asked anyone not to post pictures of my child and they actually refused, what on earth do they think gives them the right?

We told everyone that if they post any pics of our child on social media we won't let them see them again and we will stick to that.

Op where did you get the 80% statistic from? Genuine question, would help me in an argument with a friend about sharenting!

@Scratch22 a course about identifying different categories of abuse. It was good 4/5 years ago so could be different now.
@threemonthstogo my MIL favourite phrase was "you will do as you're told with my grandchild" until DP pointed out that the level of disrespect would be more likely to result in her not seeing our baby, or us again. Again - whole other thread for a whole other day 😂

Interesting Wispa, the article mentioned up thread talked to children in the USA who had found that all their sports scores and other achievements were on the net. Lots photos in newspapers many children I know have been in have been far from grainy and have their name, school/club in them mainly because they have done well at a sports or other event.
Would you remove your child from all media?

I'd hope that by that point my child would be able to decide for themselves...

Can recommend an app/website called LifeCake. It's designed for sharing kids photos within family, and they can like and comment on things, but it's closed and without adverts, and you still own the photo rights. You do have to pay if you have to put a lot of photos on, but not loads - about £30ish a year - and I'm happy to do that as the alternative is adverts and selling my/my DCs data.

It's meant my social media addicted. PIL have been okay with the fact we don't put pictures of our DC on social media.

I've worked on the tech side of a social media company before (albeit one of relatively small ones) and things about it make me feel icky putting my DCs there. Their pictures are being used as content to attract people to watch adverts.

Not unreasonable of you at all- if you don’t want pics of you or your family on SM you have every right to say so and for that to be respected. As many have said there are other ways to share pics. It sounds as though you’ll need to make this consistently and repeatedly clear. A pain.

Uanbu. I've done the same. Some of my family have 300± followers and we have no idea who most of them are. Everyone who I follow I know in person and they see my kids in RT so I post the odd pic as my privacy settings are high and have low followers. Also some of the photos of my kids may of embrassed them as the grow. I try think of this before I post as I don't want to do that. I can't control it when family members take pictures on their own phone of my kids at family gathering and that's totally fine it's for them....but I can stop them showing hundreds strangers on SM.

Is it correct that (no matter what your privacy settings) once you upload a picture to fb for example, they then own it? Have heard that but wasn’t sure if it was true.

Agree with PP - you have already set the tone with asking for scan picture to be taken down and informing family of your no SM rule. If anyone posts a picture I would:

1st time: send message reminding them of your rule and asking them to take it down immediately. No apologies for asking.

2nd time: send message saying you know we don’t want pictures of DC on SM, why did you post one again? I’m so disappointed and honestly quite upset that you felt the need to do this AGAIN. Please take it down.

3rd time: no more pictures full stop.

Any subsequent times: they don’t get to see baby!

my MIL favourite phrase was "you will do as you're told with my grandchild"

Holy fuck! I look forward to that mil thread!! 😱 She sounds horrific. Who on earth does she think she is? I would not want anyone with that attitude in my life or that of my child.

I also have a ban. DS is 7 months and there is precisely one picture on Facebook where he’s in the background and you can’t see his face. Any family members who want a photo is welcome to message me for one but I don’t want anything posted. I don’t even have a WiFi baby monitor because I’ve heard stories about people hacking them and spying on children

Dont give in with your secrer facebook idea
If they want to have photos of your kids fair enough but not to share online .leaving a digital footprint forever.

If they made it clear they are still going to do it anyway; then just dont send them photos ever again. And make that clear to them as well...

And otherwise you will unfortunately have to report the photos that your inlaws posted on SM. And keep doing it so that they will get removed.