To find it annoying when parents choose to put their children on social media but cover their faces?

[yellowpinkbluegreenlilac]

I don’t mean parents who for whatever reason decide they don’t want their children’s images on social media: that’s a totally valid choice.

But why share photos of your child and then stick a smiley face or similar over their image? Quite a few pages I follow on instagram do this, mostly those with a small business. They’ve evidently decided to share images of their family life but are so secretive about their child.

I find it irrationally annoys me, as if their child is so special in some way. I just can’t understand why, you know, you just wouldn’t share images of the child at all, or ones of the child looking out at a view so only back of head or similar. Or am I being petty and disagreeable?

I think some posters are getting the wrong end of the stick. It is an obviously valid choice not to want pictures of a child on social media. So you don't. If you are celebrating your "husband's milestone" or a family holiday or something, you are mindful of the fact that you don't want your kids on social media so you take a picture of the cake, or a generic beach shot or whatever.

It's this idea that you take the pic and then whack a fecking great emoji over the top which is attention-seeking and performative. Rather than just using an entirely different photo in the first place.

I think it is fine. I show my child's face as I'm not an influencer and my followers are only people I actually know irl. I think that if you need sm for work, with an open account and part of your work is sharing aspects of your life including having children then at least it is safer and respects their privacy not to show faces. This could make me a raving hypocrite!

YANBU. It’s bizarre, I agree. Who do they think they are, and or if they think it’s not safe, why do it at all.

But then I don’t think anyone should post pictures of their children (before they are cognisant enough to consent to it anyway), online.

I don't really care and I understand why - it' so often in group photos where the rest of the photo is lovely and I see it a lot with celebs. But it does ruin the photo so I always think it would ne nicer if they just chose a photo without the child!

I can see why it's annoying though!

My peeve in this vein is people who post pictures of their own children all over the place, but meltdown if you post a picture of the same child say at a birthday party. It happens a LOT less these days but there was a period where I was regularly seeing this or hearing about it from friends. There was a woman at our school who had complete freak outs if a child's birthday party included pics of her child, and made a huge song and dance about excluding her child from school pics... but i was on her facebook for a while and she posted photos of her children practically daily.

@Sunat45degrees - I haven’t seen it in group shots.

One of my friends is a hairdresser and she posts a lot about her life as a way of trying to get engagement with clients and potential clients which is fine. But she’ll literally announce an ‘update on my life’ which includes photos of her toddler with great emojis over his face which I find really odd.

I'd use it in a group shot for someone else's child unless I knew they were happy with me posting it.

Agreed

When I met my colleague who does this out with her daughter I felt like saying "Oh she does have a face" 😀

It's a lot more palatable if you tell yourself that they're bravely sharing photos to help fight the stigma of having a child who was tragically born with an emoji for a face.

I'd never really thought about this, and initally on your post thought you were being unreasonable but now I have considered it, yeah it's a bit annoying. They might as well just not share the image at all.

I have a few friends who do not share their children on SM as their are protection issues from other people. If you didn't know them well, you would have no idea they even had kids. There is just no trace of them at all. No photos with their faces obscured with stupid emojis, just nothing. Because what's the point in sharing the photo otherwise?

by the same tocirn you can 1.unfollow 2. Ignore and keep scrolling. Don’t understand why other peoples choices about their kids affect you so much

My friend does this. It drives me nuts. Why bother.

Social media is sometimes a nice way to include people who aren't e.g. part of a WhatsApp group. You may consider it pointless but it's a boundary I've put in place because I don't know how my child will feel about it in years to come.

People didn't think about the impact on their kids for years, then they did and convention started forming as people tried to work out how to be more respectful of their children's privacy.

Why does it annoy you that other people have different boundaries to you and/or choose to engage with social media in ways that work for them?

oh yeah, that IS weird. So glad I haven't seen it!

It’s really wanky and irrationally annoys me

I know someone who posts pics of the back of the head of their baby... or a foot... or a hand... it makes me laugh whenever I see it. Why on earth bother posting a picture at all? There's literally no point. No one has any idea what their baby looks like. Or cares. It just smacks of 'look at meeee... I'm such a responsible parent'.

People really are bonkers. Just post your baby pics in a WhatsApp group with people you care about and don't bother posting 'none images' on SM.

Haha I don’t do the emojis but will occasionally share eg. the back of my child’s head looking at a Christmas tree or something. Tbh I agree it is a bit wanky but so is so much of social media.

I don’t think it’s about these kids being particularly special, more that if you share your baby/toddler pictures, their friends will inevitably be able to find them when they’re older and use them to tease them. So I will take people’s emojis over that!

Totally agree, especially when all these people have attended gender reveals, and baby showers laden with gifts only to be greeted with an emoji for the birth pic.
Just don't bother!

People have safeguarding reasons for not having their child on social media. Dont presume it’s because they think they’re famous or something

I have zero objections to parents not having their child on social media.

That isn’t what I’m grumbling about at all. If it’s so dangerous and risky to have your child on social media leave them off social media!

Those who post with emojis over - what is your reasoning for posting that particular photo?? Surely anyone you want to see the photo eg grandparents etc would actually want to see the face of thier grandchild? I don't see the point in posting a faceless image - either do the back of head thing or just an object/scenery imagery instead? Why do you think people want to see a body and a big emoji sticker?? whats the point?

I don't post pictures of my child's face, but I do post pictures of the back of her head. The reason for this is online safety. My line of work unfortunately allows me to see the dark side of what can happen to children's pictures captured from SM.

My child is very important to me, as are other things I choose to share on SM. You could argue why people post random scenic shots, or of random meals. It's all subjective to the person's life and what they want to share.

I will agree with you on sticking an emoji over their face (or over their private parts in baths etc - MASSIVE hatred of mine) because the emoji can very very very easily be removed from a photo, meaning your little Jimmy in the bath could now be on the dark web being shared around multiple Paedophile groups.

If they don’t put a post up at all, then how would they show off and brag about whatever activity or event they’re doing?

The only people I connect with on social media are family/friends who would see my son in real life, so there is nobody on my friends list that I wouldn’t want to share his photos with. If I didn’t trust them not to do anything untoward with his image, I wouldn’t have them on my friends list in the first place!

I do have a friend who either shares photos of the back of her kids’ heads or puts emoji stickers over their faces, but doesn’t cover the faces of other children in the photos if her own children are too special to be displayed on SM, why shouldn’t that apply to every child?!

Imagining it like that Mitchell and Webb sketch, “the boy with an arse for a face”