Mother in law and social media

[Minimum2022]

yes I post pictures of my baby to my social media, but I have a private account and am very specific about who follows me… so only people i want are seeing those picture, and I am in full control of the narrative of those pictures. However my MIL has been taking almost every picture I send her privately through WhatsApp of the baby and posting it to her social media.. usually with a false narrative as a caption or sharing information about the baby that I never intended on sharing with people I know, let alone her followers that I do not know. If she had ever thought to ask, I would have said, please don’t do it.. the odd photo of her with the baby sure! But not all of them and not all the information, including letting people know that he’s kept me up all night or that I’ve struggled with feeding him. To then make things worse she’s constantly telling me how her friends DIL is such a b*tch because she makes her friend ask for permission before posting pictures of her GC on social media… Am I being unreasonable that I think she should run it by me??

Yes this.

faq.whatsapp.com/1077018839582332

Does she understand that her FB account is open to the world?

If you don't want people to post pictures of your baby then I think you need to stop as regardless of your settings. You are saying that you don't mind pictures being posted by posting them yourself.

Are you mad? Why on earth would you make that assumption?
OP, I have two grandchildren who I am so proud of that I do feel like telling the world (or at least my SM followers!) what they have been doing, where they are development-wise etc, but I don't because I respect my DD and DSiL. If I did overstep the mark, I would totally expect them to tell me and would understand their reasoning. I get that your MiL may not behave that way too, but I reckon it's worth a try to tell her how you feel.

Just a polite FYI - If you post pictures onto Facebook, even with all the most secure privacy settings, those pictures belong to Facebook and they can do what they like with them! They can use them for advertising, they can sell them, anything they like.

I blocked my mil because she was going through my pictures and sending friends requests to people who had liked or commented on them. Due to this total invasion, I made it very clear when we had children that she was not to post any pics of my dc on there. I don't care if she thinks I'm a bitch.

I do not put photos of dc on social media at all, to look at my Facebook you would not know I had a family of any kind. I would go mad if I found out this was going on.

Is there a complete demarcation in your house about who speaks to who?
That seems very clinical.

I think you should explain to her that you don’t want her to share the photos online but - and I know many on Mumsnet get really funny about all this - if she’s a genuinely loving, caring grandparent I’d let it go a bit. There are thousands and thousands of photos of children all over the internet. If weirdos want to get photos of children they can, people could literally take photos of your child in a public place without you knowing and post them online. I think in the grand scheme of things the risk of one of the photos of your child ending up being picked up by a horrible person because your mil has posted it on their Facebook page is fairly small. Personally yes I’d say something but then for my own sanity I’d stop obsessing over it.

(I’m not naive about these things at all btw - recently one of our local schools had a horrible thing where the head teacher was found to be a prolific paedo who was using indecent images of children found online and putting photos of the heads of children in his school onto those photos. Just horrible. But I guess the point is whatever you do weirdos will find a way round these things. Don’t let it stop you having a good relationship with your mil).

Why on earth have you not had a polite conversation with her about it? If you've never talked about your wishes, how is she to know that she's doing something 'wrong'?

A few days after my first DGD's birth, I posted a photo of the new family, taken a couple of hours after the birth. My DD asked if I would take it down, as that wasn't one she wanted to share. Of course I saw beauty in her brand new motherhood, while she saw post birth knackered-ness!
So of course I did, then checked with her for the next few shares, but quickly it became clear how it would work for us.

I don't care so much about the weirdos. For me it's about people having photos of your child and your family that are just out there.

When Sarah Payne went missing, that school photo that we all saw was initially stolen from the home of one of her relatives by a journalist who saw it framed on a sideboard and put it in their pocket. That was the media's only way of getting photos of the family didn't hand them over.

When that teacher ran away on a ferry with the underage girl to France, his wife had her social media photos on every tabloid. Even though she had nothing to do with it.

The photos of her were used because they were easily available and the photos of the child victim obviously couldn't be tabloid fodder for months on end so we got photos of this woman's wedding and family life instead.

That's my problem with it. You don't know what is going to happen to you or anyone in your circle in the future.

OP, my ex-MIL did this too, as well as taking photos of photos we had up in the house to put on her SM. It drove me bonkers (along with her telling me I was “selfish” for wanting to not have pictures of my DS online). I just stopped sending her any pictures and blocked her from my SM - she wasn’t happy but there wasn’t anything she could do about it 🤷‍♀️

I’d try and have a conversation with her about it and politely explain your reasoning. If she causes an issue over it then that gives you something else to think about as after all, being a grandparent in my opinion, is supporting the parents with their child, whether you agree at all times or not.

My MIL put a photo up once with her and my DS. Cue lots of comments from people saying they didn’t even know she was going to be a grandma.
Similarly, my DM took a photo of DS off my own Facebook (wasn’t sent to her) and made it her cover photo, which I think, can’t be hidden in any settings. Lots of comments directed to her about how wonderful he is and even one that he looked like my half brother. She’s only ever seen DS a handful of times because her own behaviour towards me as a child wasn’t acceptable.
I think they like a bit of ‘show offery’ and like the attention it brings them.

If speaking to her doesn’t go well, you can file a child privacy report via FB to get the photo removed or you can limit your settings so that she can still be your friend but not see your posts anymore.

We all had fb accounts at work so our vulnerable clients would often contact us through Messenger. But most of us set strict privacy on our accounts. It's totally unacceptable to put children's pictures on. Don't send her anymore

I think it’s a bit off to say she can’t put up pictures on social media when you do. My family has a total ban on children’s pictures on social media. It took a while for this to sink in with one member, but once she was spoken to, it stopped. Do the WhatsApp one thing (press the number 1 next to the text when sending) or just don’t give her any pics. It should be your Dh who tells her to stop.

Why are you on different threads telling people not to allow unsupervised access to MILs? I hope its to highlight the ridiculousness of some posters and not because you're serious

Stop sending her photos or information. If she kicks of say why.

No more naïve than anyone else, actually.