To think there's an argument against plastering Facebook with photos of your child

[BaylisAndHardon]

I imagine I'll get YABU for this as I seem to be in the very small minority, but here goes:

So many of the parents I know post photos of their babies/children multiple times a week/month. I remember being a child and it was embarrassing enough when the family photo album came out at gatherings, let alone 500+ of my parents' Facebook 'friends' being party to every moment of my childhood.

I've posted a couple of photos since my baby was born at the beginning of this year. One of her just after birth, and one family photo which I felt was reasonable.

I'd love to 'show off' my baby or post some of the cute or amusing things she does, but she's also her own person, and should be able to decide what parts of her life she wants on the internet, and which parts she doesn't.

I certainly send pictures to close family or friends to see, but I don't think it's fair on her to post them for people she will likely never meet to see online.

AIBU?

Plenty of photos come up on my news feed of people's children naked in the bath, pictures of them holding up potty's with their... product in it (poor kid). Just to show the world that they're potty trained. Screen shots of school and nursery acceptance. Like we care what bloody school your kids going too. I post pictures every now and then of my DD, fully clothed usually for a birthday photo or on a swing or something.

We share photos of our children, but never anything embarrassing or when they're ill. It's a convenient way for us to keep our global family up to date. Our children often ask us to take a photo of what they're doing and show family/friends.

Our Facebook pages are as locked down as they can get.

I am surprised that there are 27% who disagree. Assume anything posted online can be viewed by someone you have never met, despite all the efforts you can make over privacy.

Is anyone actually "embarrassed" by the fact that they did some funny cute thing as a baby.
No, but that doesn't mean I'd want every minute of my life documented.

I highly doubt the people seeking likes by uploading lots of photos would be happy to upload all their baby photos.

I highly doubt they would be uploading naked photos of themselves in the bath / them in the garden in just their underwear.

If a partner uploaded a photo of their other half clearly upset or distressed or angry then we'd rightly consider it anything from unpleasant to bullying to abusive, but it's apparently fine to upload photos of babies and children in emotionally charged states.

I'm not against sharing on social media, but it is right to question some of the content that is shared

I don’t want their faces plastered all over the internet so this is my compromise. Tbh I only post a couple times a month but still

I post pictures every now and then of my DD, fully clothed usually for a birthday photo or on a swing or something.

This just shows you how people's views on this can be so different, OP and these other pps think they are really strict on privacy. Others would say they aren't strict at all. You "only" post a couple of times a month? That's a lot! And second pp who "only posts pictures fully clothed"? I mean, that's pretty obvious and the bare minimum standard isn't it?

I certainly send pictures to close family or friends to see, but I don't think it's fair on her to post them for people she will likely never meet to see online.

So who is on your facebook then? Because I only have family and close friends on there so don't see the difference. Surely your not friends with complete strangers?

I agree, we don’t share any online. Down to them when they reach adulthood what they want out there on SM.

I like the odd photo on WhatsApp from new parents where it’s private.

Plenty of means to share pictures and keep in touch without using SM.

No a baby can't consent but they won't care either way. I very rarely post photos of my older children, only if they consent and didn't have fb before they were 10 and 8 anyway.
I do post photos of my baby probably once every two months or so. Mainly though I do so as we're not mixing with the family or our friends much and its nice for them to see a photo.

I have the same worry as you OP, but on the other hand I wonder whether kids now will just be so used to having their photos taken pretty much every day that they won't be so bothered about it. These days taking photos is so cheap and easy that you can pick the best ones and delete the rest. When I was little (80's), photos were taken on special occasions, you had to wait weeks to get them developed, and if they turned out awful you were stuck with them! We don't have that issue now.

There are people who claim posting photos on FB will lead to some random sex offender becoming obsessed with your child, identifying their school and kidnapping them. Obviously the chance of that happening is very, very slim and those people are a little crazy.

Then there are the ones who claim that children can't consent to photos online, which I think is a fair point- although does it really matter on a parents private FB account with limited access? I don't know.

But daily posting is weird. Nobody outside of the parents, perhaps grandparents, aunts and uncles at a stretch, care about other peoples kids that much.

I think it’s the type of photo not the volume that is a problem.

75 photos of my baby asleep in his cot - fine. 1 photo of a baby naked having a bath - not fine. To be clear, I have lots of naked photos of my kids but they are not to be shared!

I post photos but my account is locked down as much as I can it

The way is see it, children are broigh up with tech now, that posting on social media is the norm

I don’t post any obvious embarrassing photos either

I admit I was an oversharer. Now my daughter is 14 she has banned me from sharing her pics on any social media and has even asked me to delete old pics of her which I admit I feel quite sad about as I like it when they pop up on the memories section. I guess with my older 2 daughters I would take pics and print them off or save them to a memory card so I will always have a copy. I can totally see it from her point of view now and I feel bad I was an oversharer. I now cringe when I see friends sharing every single aspect of their kids lives. They must have a phone trained on their kids 24/7 just as I did sadly 😪

Yanbu. As a pp blanket ban on Facebook pics. Dd1 is 11 and no pics as yet. The world hasn't ended! Dd2 is 7.

I won't allow the school to post pics either.

The pp with the friend with the shaped pancakes I am 😂 as I also know someone like that 😂.

We don't post any photos of our DC to Facebook or Instagram. We also refuse permission for anyone else to post or in some cases even take their photos (e.g professional photographers at events / holiday places etc)

They cannot consent to their photos being used or shared so I won't consent for them.

I also think it will make conversations around internet safety easier when they are older too.

Family who want them can be sent photos. We also do an 'official' Christmas and birthday photo that we either send with or use as a thank you / Christmas card.

I personally find it annoying to see constant kid spam from others. I'm also very aware at how hard it can be for those suffering with infertility, child or pregnancy loss to see all those too.

@twizbe I just came back to make the point about people who struggle with fertility or who have lost a child. A friend of mine had to leave Facebook because there was so much baby spam on it at one point. I can't really sorry for her

A bit off topic but I realised how strange it was that I knew everything about people I hadn’t seen in over a decade. Names and ages of their children, how they are doing at school, every minute detail of their life, where they work. The children I know everything about would pass me in the street and not know me at all.
The consent thing is an issue too

My Facebook only includes family and friends who I genuinely want to keep in touch with and who would be interested in my life. I had a clear out a few years ago of the random people I met on nights out, old work colleagues or people I met at weddings. I feel secure in posting photos of DD albeit don't do it often and I have my security settings to ones that mean my friends/family can't share what I post so the photos aren't seen by people I don't know. I don't have loads of social media accounts ie no instagram etc - only Facebook. I don't post embarrassing etc photos or videos

Some of my friends on the other hand are massive oversharers and not a day goes by without some lengthy post accompanied by 20+ photos

I am quite mixed about the whole thing. Firstly, when things like FB became available it was brilliant as it allowed my friends and family in another country to see what I was up to.

However, I feel social media has moved way beyond this now. As others have mentioned, all the sharenting/ look at me/ look at my amazing fake life/ here are 15 pics of my child doing a poo / click like to be liked are too much for now and I've completely withdrawn and stopped posting.

You've destroyed your own argument by saying you have put pictures on FB.

I've never used FB, will never use it and if I had children I definitely wouldn't put their photographs on FB. Once something's on the internet it's there forever.

I have a friend who constantly shares pics of her family eating shaped pancakes that she's made with organic flour that she grew the wheat for herself, she scavenged the huge plate of berries that she has with them on a lovely autumn day with her kids (with pics of course) and then gave half to the poor. The eggs were laid by ex battery hens they adopted and presumably signed a waiver for their eggs to be used etc etc Bore off!

This made me laugh!

I don’t like photos of children on social media because

• they haven’t consented and might be embarrassed later
• it’s going to make it very hard to say they shouldn’t post selfies when they are teens
• it’s boring for everyone else, except grandparents/family (who could easily receive photos via whatsapp or email instead)
• most people are only doing it to show off their perfect family moments, there’s never snaps of the tantrums or cleaning up wee. So contributes to other parents feeling inadequate
• it all contributes to people’s obsession with how something will look in a photo rather just enjoying something for its own sake

But then I’m a bit of a dinosaur and am not on SM and think it’s mostly a bad thing.

I personally have always posted photos of my daughter on Facebook. We have a very spread family and I find this a nice way to share her goings on. Photos are always fully clothed ofcourse and generally just nice family moments or funny ones. I don't think it does any harm. If when she gets older she doesn't want it shared I'll make the album private. Easy. It's also how I back up my favourite photos 😊

Oh and I love to post a good tantrum or bad days 🤣 we are real people after all! 🤣

I agree to a certain extent. I post photos of my son on Instagram,but my Instagram is private and I only have family and close friends as followers. I see it as a sort of online photo album for those I'm close to. I don't post anything at all to my Facebook. I live a long way from all my family and close friends, so this is a way of sharing those moments with them in a non invasive way. There are no naked, or crying photos as I don't think it's right to share those highly personal, highly emotional photos with anyone. (Or even take them, why you would film or photo your kid crying / having an emotional response to something is beyond me)