How can I tell family(parents) we don't want to share pictures of our baby with them.

[1stpregnancywoes]

I know this may seem strange and some may disagree but it is our baby and we are very keen to make sure her privacy is paramount and she can't consent. Initially we shared images of our baby with family via WhatsApp. We told them no sharing online. One family member did not listen to this and shared the photo.
We now no longer even want to share images with family at all as people just can't be trusted.
My husband's parents have again asked to see pictures of her ( mind you they haven't even asked how she is in around 6 months (she is 6 months and 1 week old)

How can we word this? How can we tell people
We don't want to share any images of her online at all. And that when they come to our home that we do not consent to them taking pictures of her as we know they will show/share them.

Thank you in advance

I’m glad you are not my daughter .. my friends and I love showing each other photos of our grandchildren.
I think you are going a bit far.

Op you’re being ridiculous!!!!

You are going to raise a paranoid child! For goodness sake, chill!

I'm guessing all those posters who agree with putting their children's photos all over social media platforms are those who happily do this. I wouldn't mind a school group photo shared by the school other than that I agree with you OP. I definitely wouldn't stop sending photos to members of family who promise not to share them, especially Grandparents. I find this rather alienating so I'd be careful or you may find your child's is eventually autriciised & I say this out of concern.

@PigeonLady I already posted before, but someone I know had a few photos of her kids nicked and posted on a website where people write child porn stories.
I read about someone whose child's photos were used by someone who pretended to be their parent, and who wrote very dark stories about the kids being kidnapped using the said photos.
There was a pedophile ring who used photos of kids posted on flickr to fantasise about.
And those were the days well pre-facebook being this popular.
A few of the big memes involving people who were kids years ago when they were taken dont have any ownership of their own image now.

OP shared her the photos on a family whatssap, and still it seemed not safe enough as someone thought it would be cool to disrespect her wishes and post them online. There is nothing indicating she was making big announcements with revelaing detail online only to now withhold baby photos to family, so not sure the relevance of this. OP wants to minimise the likelihood of her child's photo ending in wrong places. I cant believe people find this wrong.
Pre digital photos people didnt have photos of everything all the time and lived.

Im sure OP is glad you're not her mother.

Also, it's kinda different to send photos to friends via a chat, and different to post them on an open social media so that everyone gets to see how amazing of a grandma you are.

With kindness, this does seem OTT

Can't you set up a shared Google Photos (or similar) and just invite the family members you trust? I think it's a bit extreme to prevent your wider family seeing pictures of your child!

The Internet is permanent and no the data bases/cloud accounts and severs are not all looked after securely. Cyber security is at its highest need atm and growing rapidly. You would be appalled at the amount of companies/agencies that have been hacked and data breached and the public have no idea where their information and photos have been distributed too/among.

Tbh I don’t t save my Dc photos to cloud . I guess that makes me all of the names on here…

Every other Christmas we give an updated photo book to both sets of grandparents, each of which cover a couple of years. (At first they were annual for the first baby but let’s be honest … subsequent Dc are less photographed! First baby we had first swing, first sandpit, first ice cream … you name it, there was the accompanying photo). They really cherish them. One has them on her coffee table, the other has been known to “ just happen to have it in the car” when visiting her friends! 😉 To my knowledge they have never attempted to copy and upload them. I think this is a good and not overly controlling way to let family share in the images without unleashing them into the public domain.

I didn’t say the internet wasn’t permanent? I said it’s no more permanent than giving your data for other things such as passports etc which i’m sure OP will get for her child.

It's companies that use the cloud.
Having photo books are lovely. I started mine for my kids when they were born and gave them on their 18th bdays they loved it along with ones for GP's.

What are you so worried about? Your position is extreme.

I don't post photos of myself on social media. I only have Facebook and only to keep in touch with a couple of friends and their support pages have been useful.

I have been very careful about what I put on there, it doesn't have my real dob for example. Back as an undergrad in the early days of Facebook a friend was able to set up a joint account with housemates using the information found on Facebook which I found terrifying!

I cringe every time I see a photo of a child on social media in branded school uniforms. We have a ban on sharing of photos, grandparents get regular photos and they can show them to friends when they see them in person but not send them round. We do photo books every Christmas. My daughter is 4 now, her name isn't even mentioned on SM. It's too easy to mine it for information. Every time I answer security questions I ask myself could anyone else know this information. My employers don't get mentioned this was a recommendation at one employer due to employees being targeted by activists. I don't have LinkedIn or any employment details. In a previous job all of the employees were on the company website with email addresses. I was contacted by someone utterly convinced I was a different person with the same name who they child minded.

@Tulipsareredvioletsarebue

Yes totally. I can see on occasion it causes an issue. But so does driving a car, walking on the pavement, eating dinner, breathing also on occasion cause issue.

There is nothing indicating she was making big announcements with revelaing detail online only to now withhold baby photos to family, so not sure the relevance of this.
The reason I asked OP what she was so worried about was because perhaps something like that has happened. Or she had another legitimate reason or fear or whatever.

The reason I brought the above up was as an example. As I said I know a number of people like this now and I judge their reasoning/ behaviour to differing degree depending on the circumstance.

OP has given very little context so I am unsure which category she’s in and can’t comment. But yes it is completely relevant to whether she’s BU or not.

Some of these people think the world should revolve around them with very little thought to anyone else.

I have literally had photos of my own child sent to me in private message by anti photo parents; of nursery photos I have never seen (because I am not allowed to see them because they have made claim to them by virtue of their precious ones being present) and been asked ‘hi, is this a picture of your child X playing with my child?’. It’s literally like what the fuck! Have they no self awareness to how weird, unreasonable and annoying a communication that is considering their stance.

So yes sure if someone’s totally anti photo and this is something they thoroughly believe and through and through behave that way and respect others similarly and really live that ethos then cool. I am totally cool with it.

But 99% of the time it’s really not like that. They will expect to take photos of their child at their birthday party with other kids present. They will expect nursery photos sent them. They will expect all these entirely normal things which only work when other people aren’t behaving like they are.

The issue is simply that you asked them not to share and they did. Going nuclear over it is ridiculous. Tell them if it happens again you won’t send them any more pictures and don’t involve the rest of your family in your drama.

If you are in witness protection, there is no database of baby pictures, and the Gambini crime family never target children in any case.

@PigeonLady

Yes totally. I can see on occasion it causes an issue. But so does driving a car, walking on the pavement, eating dinner, breathing also on occasion cause issue.

Surely you see a difference between something you can avoid and something you can't? When you drive a car do you drink a pint before and drive without seatbelts saying YOLO we may get in an accident regardless, or do you try to do everything to drive safely? This is what OP is doing the latter, trying to minimise opportunities to expose the child to danger.

I thin what makes it difficult to discuss it is that we all have different boundaries and different relationship with our family and different wider experiences.

We have not shared a single photo of your children online, ever. Most of our family members are also not on social media. I share loads of pics on fmaily whatsapp, and I know 100% not a single one has ever been reposted. I also know we are very lucy as my social media feed is inundated by people's kids photos, or other relatives' kids photos. Im sure most of them have not got permission to repost these photos.

A friend of mine posts gazillions of photos of her daughter's dance lessons including many other little girls, with details such as the name of the school or dates of events. I find that so wrong. I would not want my children's activity photos including them be posted on sm with name of the clubs etc- but for many people it seems a norm to boast and elevate themselves by sharing details about their children to make themselves look more interesting.

I read it as OP never having shared photos of her children and I get that. I also get that she was so angry with the family she decided to stop sharing to prevent photos being reposted again- becaus even if she shares them with Grandpa A, he may share it with the person who posted them on sm originally. Once the pic is out, you can't always stop it.

Her stance is not unreasonable. One day her child will be a drown up and will decide or themselves if they want to put photos of themselves on social media, now the baby cant do that and it's fair OP decided not to post any pictures until that time comes.

The equivalent isn’t drink driving. It’s refusing to drive as you decide it’s too dangerous for you; and in some cases totally acknowledging all this entails. And in other cases organising something which requires driving and expecting others to drive to you.

I don’t have any info to whether Op is unreasonable or not.

If you can’t see that some people who do this are completely unreasonable and it’s more of a narcissistic control or I’m special thing rather than anything to do with child boundary/ privacy/ safety than I don’t know what to say. IMO it does happen. As I said I have no idea whether that’s OP or not

@PigeonLady
But OP is not stopping the family from seeing the child- she does not send digital photos to them because they were dicks about her request.
There are deranged people who do this sort of stuff to get more attention for themselves- but I am not sure why you think OP is one of them. Seems like your judgement is coloured because of people you know, not because of anythign OP wrote.

@Tulipsareredvioletsarebue

I have no idea whether OP is one of these people or not. I have said that multiple times.

But I do have mixed feelings about this and quite strong ones. Particularly because of the situation I outlined which occurred to me recently.

If you can't empathise why a parent might be pissed off that there are photos of their child that they are unaware of/ not allowed to see; BECAUSE of an anti photo parents wishes for THEIR child's privacy. Can you not see how that's paradoxical and entirely fucking annoying.

I appreciate this isn't exactly what's happening here. But it's part of a wider discussion around this. People's decisions aren't a vacuum and do affect others.

I'm sure you can understand.

As you've found you'll get a lot of flack from people who still think the internet is a nice fluffy place.

I used to post DS online but stopped when DD arrived - criminals are now using AI to create abuse images from innocent photos.

Also look at any child influencer on TikTok and see how many saves there are on videos of them doing innocent things like eating a banana compared to some of their other content and how many of those accounts are men.

What I would do is sent the pictures but make them single view only. It's not possible to save or screenshot a message that's been sent that way.

It's nice to get to a point of agreement! I agree also the initial action may not have been malicious, more just someone not realising how strongly the parents feel about it. I tried to say quite early on in one of my posts that maybe the OP might want to try gently explaining why this is important to them as a first step. Some people might just genuinely not be aware!

Yes, I’m sure there are quite a few threads on that topic already. 😶

The discussion around ‘consent’ when it involves minors is certainly gaining traction. It seems to provoke strong reactions and may be something we need to get accustomed to, as it doesn’t appear to be going away. As a pp mentioned, there have been cases where children have made serious legal complaints about what their parents have shared publicly and the subsequent effects it's had on their lives. Can recommend researching digital emancipation if further reading is of interest to you. This issue is not limited to the United States as I'm sure many may initially think. I believe France has introduced legislation around ‘sharenting’ to emphasise that adults should consider the long-term implications before posting pictures of children? In the UK the NSPCC advises that children should be asked for their consent to take and share photos as soon as they are capable of providing it. While a baby obviously cannot give consent, in an era where ‘the absence of a no does not mean yes’, perhaps we should assume that until they can actively consent, we do not have it, and should refrain from sharing content whose effects we cannot control. Again, not pertaining to actions equating to personal hygiene, nutrition and person safety, but certainly to things which are superfluous, like posting pictures on the internet.

Can imagine certain people will find this ludicrous, but older generations viewing the younger ones actions as insanity isn't exactly new either. I remember hearing that when rock n roll came out people thought their children were disturbed and possessed. Sure there are a tonne of other examples of societal changes that were often at odds with the values and expectations of the preceding generation. Perhaps this is just one of those times.

That's a really interesting post @Nafotdbs .

I'm just going to pick out this bit, because you've reminded me of something:

The discussion around ‘consent’ when it involves minors is certainly gaining traction. It seems to provoke strong reactions and may be something we need to get accustomed to, as it doesn’t appear to be going away

When I was a child, my parents used to make kiss and hug all my relatives hello/goodbye. Generally didn't have a problem with it apart from Great Aunty Mary.
I loathed her
I used to shake my head no, but my parents would force me to do it.

Anyway, a few years ago there was a great thread here on MN about this exact issue.
It was a great discussion about consent.

As adults, if we do not want to hug/kiss someone, we don't.
Yet, for some reason, we expect/force children to hug/kiss people when they clearly dont want to.
Babies are a little different as they cannot show they are unhappy, well, maybe they start crying.

It resonated with me. As does this discussion around children's consent for sharing thier picture on social media.

My view is as an adult, i can choose to share pictures of myself online, or not. Yet, we dont extend that same choice, or "consent" to children.

I'll copy your caveat, just incase the usual "your child doesnt consent to a nappy change" comes up again
Again, not pertaining to actions equating to personal hygiene, nutrition and person safety, but certainly to things which are superfluous, like posting pictures on the internet.

Yes quite! Again this is one of those things which is so normal now amongst my friends and family (IE not forcing children to give or receive unwanted affection as a precursor to understanding consent) that I'm always astounded that it's in fact still very much expected by some people. Then again I'm often amazed (if that word can be used negatively) at how many adults will interrupt /speak straight across my children like they're not worthy of manners at all yet be very disgruntled if they in turn are interrupted (especially by children).

Were his parents the posters? We don't put ours on social media. We have an app that all close family is on that gets all the photos and videos. But they all know they're not to post anything on social media. I'm fine with them showing friends etc pics on their phone when with them, but they are not to send them.

Unless his parents were posting tell them x isn't getting pics anymore as posted and if you find they're circulating or posting they won't be getting more.

We hold the same stance. And to be fair we don't send photos to anyone. The expection is my parents and in-laws (grandparents) as they have no social media and they wont share with anyone they are trust worthy.

But giving they have not been in touch in 6 months I woupsnt be sensing. Maybe suggest a video call so they can see their grandchild and tall of you.

"Baby can't consent"... sorry, to being seen?

Fucking ridiculous. That poor baby.