AIBU to ask my mum to stop WhatsApping baby photos?

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My mother has been sending photos of my baby to distant family friends via WhatsApp. I’m uncomfortable with this as when baby was born I asked my parents not to share her on social media, including WhatsApp.

When I said to my mum that I didn’t like this she brushed me off and said she was just trying to cheer the person up.

This ticked me off as if my baby’s purpose to cheer people up or trumps her right to privacy.

AIBU? If you agree with me what would you say to my mum? My dad’s probably at it too.

I don’t think oP’s update is relevant here at all.

I appreciate how that sounds, but the OP is willingly sending those pictures to the person who stood by while she was sexually abused. Had she refused to send them to her that would be understandable, but she’s not.

So she still trusts her with the photo’s, with her baby, but is using this excuse now as a form of control.

There is 0 risk to sending a picture on WhatsApp. None.

While of course what happened to OP as a child was awful, the fact that she’s still happy to engage with her mother clearly shows this has nothing to do with it.

Harsh. But essentially true

And you are someone with so little empathy that you will respond in this awful way to a survivor of child sexual abuse whose mother knew something was going on and did nothing to protect her daughter. OP should cut off all ties with her. Your post is disgusting and you should be ashamed.

So it's ok to cross people's boundaries because it brings me joy?
Ok

You are definitely not being unreasonable. I have heard of others who work in the cyber security area who will not send photos of their children on WhatsApp, they only do it using a different app (don't recall the name).

Assume others have said this but I'd just stop sending the photos to your mum and dad if you can't trust them and it really upsets you.

I think it's one thing to show a photo of your grandchild on your phone to a friend whilst they're with you in person, very different thing to send the photo to their phone.

I'm so sorry you were SA'd OP, and that your mother suspected but did nothing.

Of course it’s about control. The behaviours resulting from childhood trauma are complex and often appear contradictory. The OP clearly wants a relationship with her mum, despite the fact that her mum did not protect her. That’s illogical in itself, yet entirely understandable. Wanting to exert control where she can is also understandable. Why would anyone expect consistency and logic to apply to an emotionally messy relationship?

The dismissive responses on here, many of them presumably from the sort of entitled GPs the OP is up against, are so telling.

Once photographs of children are uploaded to messaging apps like WhatsApp, and shared, any control of those images is lost. Those children are people and have rights, believe it or not, and they get no say. Some relatives will share them more widely than just on messaging apps and TAG them. Then the name that belongs to the child's image is also out there. We have no idea where that might lead for someone's identity in the future, with the growing sinister uses AI is put to, for example. Why should that child and its parents not be allowed to have a say in their privacy? Because... family?

Come on.

Massive drip-feed.
95% of the replies to your original post will be irrelevant to you, because the posters missed this rather big update.

Why do you have any contact at all with your mother? How can you even bear to be around her?

Yet another person who doesn’t get it. People who are hurt by a parent, be it physically, emotionally, sexually or (as in this case) neglect, often continue to crave the love, attention and approval of that parent. Perhaps trying to control the distribution of her child’s photos is the only pushback the OP can manage. That’s just one possible explanation of many.

This is complex, for a variety of reasons.

Fundamentally, you've asked your Mum not to do something, and she's doing it anyway.

What I don't understand though, is if you're so untrusting of anything owned by Meta, why you're using one of their platforms to share photos.

I think the only viable solution to these problems is to stop sharing photos on WhatsApp fullstop.

Not what I was actually saying at all - I was saying originally, I thought she needed to rethink that particular boundary, but given the update, maybe not!

This post is batshit. Babies and small children can't consent to loads of things (although DS strongly disagrees with things like nappy changes or having his breakfast, judging from the wailing.)

Most of what you're describing is parenting. I'm the one feeding my child, until he can buy his own food I'm going to decide what he eats, the same with drinks (water,) he can't go anywhere by himself yet, so I'm 'controlling' what he does, and as soon as he can talk I'll be teaching him to say please and thank you.

He's going to be exposed to opposing views, no matter what I think about those views, because I do want him to think for himself. I like to see what the other side is saying. (Usually nothing good.)

And no, I don't want people sharing pictures of him online. I don't share pictures of him online either. OP is well within her rights to ask people not to.

Hilarious!

I guess the time will come where we all go out with masks and cloaks on in case CCTV sees us or our children and someone somewhere see the images. Perhaps we should all just go into lockdown again

Frankly, I wouldn't be sending them photos to pass along at all, hearing that. I'd either cut them off, or distance myself significantly and keep their access to my children tightly controlled. That kind of negativity and reminder of trauma isn't something I'd want in my life.

My sympathies, OP.

People can screen dump from whatsapp

well you know the answer is not to send any photos to your mum, don't you?

Exactly this ! We were given so many rules about our grandchildren we don't make much of an effort. No kissing no hugging. Told off for sending pictures to great grandfather who lives too far away to visit etc etc. List is ridiculously long

WhatsApp isn't social media. It's a messaging app.

Having said that, if you don't want your mother sharing photos with her friends then don't send her any.

Just checking that I understand, your mother is sharing pictures of her grandchild with family and friends on WhatsApp, not Instagram etc? I honestly can't see a problem

Some people really don’t like to be told no do they! Just because you don’t agree with it changes nothing. NO means NO.

Saying no to a grandparent taking their GC in the car without a car seat - absolutely

Saying no to GP feeding two year old DGC whole grapes - absolutely

Saying no to a relative asking for a photo of the new addition to their family, because they're unable to visit - mean, and batshit crazy.

I love being able to share photos with family and close friends in USA, Canada, Australia, France and the Netherlands. I don't do it ad nauseam, maybe once a year at Christmas. People are all over the world these days and no-one sends photos by snail-mail due to the cost of postage. Up to the poster what she does, but she needs to clear things up for her mother regarding what happened in her childhood and how this has affected her attitude towards her sending photos.

But these are distant family friends that OP's mum is sending the photos to, not close family members and she is deliberately going against OP's stated wishes.

It may seem to many posters that OP has taken an extreme stance on her child's right to privacy but her experience of CSA from the age of 5 to 13 when her mum suspected that this was going on but neither of her parents stopped it or protected her will have had a massive negative impact on OP. After failing to protect her own daughter from CSA, surely her mother can just do as OP asks and not send photos of OP's baby to other people. This would be a small way of her making amends to OP.

If she refuses to stop, threaten to report her to the police for malicious communication or similar.
Even if they don't actually do anything, the threat alone may stop a 'obsessively over sharing' grandparent from doing so.
Or go nuclear and threaten no contact with her if they don't bloody stop.
You see mad cases in the USA, were insane grandmothers with 'baby rabies' overshare all the time and think of the ''grandbabies' are there property etc.
Nightmares for the mother/parents 😑
(I really hate that term 'grandbabies' , and them even using it on six year olds 🤦)