What's your opinion on posting baby on social media?

I don’t post my kids pictures. You could always set up a photo share so anyone that you approve can have access to your photos. As long as you have communicated that you are doing the share instead of posting your child…I think most people will respect that. If they don’t…they can be removed from the group!

I post pics of my little one mostly because I live on a different continent to my family. I won’t be posting any with identifying facts though as she gets older, eg school name, sports team name, dance school etc

We are going to limit on our social medias

There is an app called ‘TinyBeans’. It’s like IG where you can share photos daily. But the only ones that have access are those who you invite by email. No one can search, etc. We will use that to share with family and friends of our choosing

I don’t post any. Family is very respectful about it. If they post something, we’ve asked them to take it down. Which they’ve done without complaint.

I have Line and WeChat to say connected to family that's overseas and everyone is pretty much in a family group chat, and I don't mind them sharing privately with other relatives that I don't have contact with.

It’s not overly something I worry about but then when I had my eldest social media was fairly new and most of my relatives arnt on it. The only thing I am careful about is avoiding school logos. I don’t do it that often anyway and I wouldn’t post a photo just in their nappy for example. My daughters school post pictures of her which is a public page which is slightly strange but it’s nice to see what she’s up to and previously at preschool (private page for parents) especially as she has a severe speech disorder.

I desperately dont want a giant group chat. It would drive me insane. I wasn’t really looking for an alternative to putting on social media to be honest. My privacy settings are pretty tight because I’m a teacher and I only have family and close friends.

I share 99% of my photos on a google album that only my close family have access to. I share maybe one photo a week for those who don’t have access. I really am not concerned about it.

For a very short time I posted my first on Facebook to an album that only very close friends and family could see but tagging my husband in the post, his friends could see it too and some had made uncomfortable comments and wanted to save or share my child’s pictures to their profiles…. So I ended up saying fuck that all together and deleting everything and I won’t be sharing anything about my children anymore. I grew up learning the dangers of the internet and all the weirdos out there and I won’t be exposing my children to that. I ask family to keep any pictures they have within the family and not to send/post them anywhere, people have ignored that and I have stopped sending them photos of my kids. I won’t and don’t post anything about my kids

We post on Facebook all the time.

I used to a lot but stopped years ago. I'll post a few here and there on private but it's so rare. Family respects it and they don't post them either.

I'm covering the face if i post any pics, I do hate it however, when someone's in a large group say on fb with millions of people in and up goes a pic of their kid!! Not good at all xx

I personally think it’s pointless. Lots of people don’t do it because of the perves but they are everywhere not just online so people can still take pictures of your kids at the store or whatever it is. Someone having a picture of my child and doing whatever they want with it has 0 effect on us so I really don’t care. The thing I won’t do is post stuff that would embarrass my child in the future. Naked things or tantrums or something like that. I might record for my own because it was funny or something but I wouldn’t share it. I also don’t share a lot anyway on social media. But I still will do pictures or something on my story from time to time and my family liked to post them sometimes.

We posted a birth announcement with a picture a few weeks after he was born but didn't include his birthday or middle name. We regretted it later and took it down and haven't posted anything about him since aside from one family photo where his back is facing the camera and he is in long sleeves, pants, and a hat so the only thing you see is his shape and one hand. Neither of us post on social media very often anyways so it isn't a big deal for us.
We have a private shared photo album that immediately family has access to and can keep in touch that way. It was hard to get my mom to respect our boundaries and we have had to ask her to take things down several times but it is worth it for his privacy. Until he can understand and consent, we will do our best to keep him off social media.

I think this is an interesting topic, I have friends who only post the back of the children’s heads or cover with emojis. I asked my partner what he wanted and he seemed fine with posting photos. I just look through my friends list and check if I need to cull anyone x

Or another thing is to have a family WhatsApp group to post on there instead x

I post on Facebook as my family like to see photos of her. My Instagram was public until this week so I limited what went on there but I’ve made her her own insta profile though that is private & has limited people on and I post a lot on there x

We chose to not put our children on social media and had a family member cross that boundary in a big way by making their profile picture a picture of our oldest. This person adds any and everyone on facebook. We asked for them to take it down and they refused and I had to go through Facebook to prove I was my oldest a mother and have them take it down. It was a hot mess. So now only select family even get pictures of the kiddos.

I rarely post family photos, for example our wedding photos, recently on my private social media, and my little girl’s face was covered with an emoji or post photos where her head is turned/ looking down etc.
Close family members get photos sent to them via WhatsApp or Skype.

I post on fb and snapchat all the time

I do post to social media but all my socials are private so can only be viewed by family and friends.

mine too on fb especially

We have a private page for each of our girls that they'll get access too when they're older. It allows for family abroad (we're geographically separated from all family on both sides) to see them and make comments and such especially some who will not likely be around when they're teens/young adults. I also post stories about them growing and such for them to read about. It's by invite only. Mostly because I know how annoying it is when people post 10k pics a day to their public page you don't want to see it gets annoying and then their page is a little we love you page with their life growing up 💕

I also created Gmail accounts for them for people to email them pictures, stories, family history anything they would want to share. Getting information about who their grands and great grands are while theyre still alive is something I missed out on and so informative. My first daughter even had someone write and publish a book for/about her and the proceeds go to her 529 plan!

usually school get you to sign something with permission to share their image.

exactly my thoughts

My husband and I decided against sharing our son on the Internet almost as soon as I got pregnant. Once images are uploaded to the Internet they're almost impossible to completely erase and with how advanced technology is getting we just aren't comfortable putting our son out there for whatever purposes strangers might come up with for those photos.

I can see your point, but our children in the future might not feel that way when they grow up if their photos end up being made into memes, manipulated with AI, or shared on the dark web etc, and you really don’t know what will be embarrassing to them when they grow up. What you think is cute now might be embarrassing to your children in the future. I for one am grateful that internet wasn’t a thing when I was little.
Also I personally know a photographer who said he had to report many pages where people save people’s children’s photos off social media and upload them online for others. And they’re not always what you would think predators would be looking for, also innocent photos. You might be ok with that but your children might not be, and they can’t consent.

We post, I used to post more however I have really stepped back. I also find it really upsetting when people post children without parents permission. My husband's family does it and he doesn't understand why I get upset. I just feel it's not up to them to decide what is an appropriate post or picture of a child that is not thiers 🤷‍♀️

I don’t really post on social media much anyway. My pages are all set to private and I know everyone that follows me. I’ll post a pic here and there I’m sure but I’m not big on posting in general

I hate it

We’ve decided against posting our son’s image online. I know realistically we can’t completely avoid it happening, but his is one of the first generations to have this kind of exposure on social media and there’s lots of unknowns about how it’ll affect them. Also, my son can’t consent to having his image online, and who knows how it could affect him in the future when he’s applying to schools/jobs. For us it really comes down to respecting his right to privacy, and protecting his safety. Our families have honored our request to not post him on their social media accounts, and we’re so grateful for their support on this matter.

Absolutely, , you make a valid point. Sharing a cute picture of your little one sporting a new coat is totally harmless in the grand scheme of things. It’s definitely up to each parent to decide what they feel comfortable sharing. However, there’s an underlying risk that any image could be interpreted differently than intended. Take, for instance, if a parent posts a photo of their toddler pretending to puff on a toy cigarette as a joke. While it’s meant to be light-hearted and funny, down the line, a potential employer might see it differently, possibly as promoting smoking or poor judgment. Maybe I’m totally overthinking it, but I’d rather play it safe and not share any images of my child online; it feels like the best way to avoid any potential pitfalls down the road, you know?

it could stop her having a career with some government agencies, with special forces, or as a spy, if her image can be found anywhere online and she can be identified.

lol you asked so I answered. These are just some of the examples, I’m sure there’s other things. And it is not really a parent’s decision what their child chooses as a career. Also potential of stolen identity. It comes down to giving them the choice of whether they want to be online at all.

I’m sure you’re making your risk assessments. No need to be all sarcastic and I never said you weren’t allowed to make your decisions as a parent. We are discussing here why some parents are choosing not to put their children online. We shouldn’t be made to feel like the crazy ones for respecting our children’s right to privacy and making their own decisions when they’re old enough. Children can’t consent, so unless you wait til they’re an adult, any consent you get doesn’t mean much when they don’t understand the implications.

I can totally handle people disagreeing with me. No you didn’t explicitly say anyone was crazy but your whole attitude is dismissive and mocking. You keep saying things like “oh I’m sure it’s fine if my 45 Facebook friends can see a picture of her in her new coat.” Yeah the risks are small if you have 45 friends on your social media and try not to put anything embarrassing. But you seem to be laughing at and hanging on to the spy thing as if the whole argument depends on it. This is just one example.
And children can consent to things they can understand. Like can I change your nappy, can I pick you up etc. They can’t understand the implications of being posted online. Because even us adults don’t fully understand what those implications might be for the future.
And I really don’t care whether you put your child’s photos on your family only Facebook friends where you’ve got 45 people. Most people have more Facebook friends than that and people they don’t know very well.

yeah such a great sense of humour… lol I really don’t care whether you’re bowing down to my views. I’ve established you’re the kind of person I’m not going to agree with and that’s fine. And feel free to move on anytime, nobody is holding you on this app or in this conversation 🤣

, I noticed some of your responses to got deleted- don’t know if that was intentional or if there’s a bug. Anyway, it seems like you’re up for a good debate on this topic! I’ve already made my call on what’s best for my kid, and I don’t have any interest in discussing it any further (too much time/energy to have to come back here to comment when I’ve got a very energetic baby to mind!) I’m not trying to convince you of anything and I respect your right to choose to post any photo of your child online. If you’re curious to keep delving into the subject, I recommend researching ‘sharenting’ or checking out the book ‘Raising Humans in a Digital World’ by Diana Graber; I think you might find them interesting 😁

I don’t have an issue with you and I’m sorry if my message conveyed that kind of vibe. I’m just uninterested in continuing this conversation 🤗

Hello there, it seems I’ve been blocked as well. I just wanted to take a moment to revisit our conversation after some time to reflect and gather my thoughts. I’ve found that sometimes discussions here can feel a bit challenging without the benefit of hearing each other’s tones, and it’s easy for misunderstandings to arise, even unintentionally.

On the topic of sharing photos of my son online, it’s something I’ve been considering deeply. I realize that the world is constantly changing, and I can’t predict what career path my son will choose or what social norms will prevail in the future. He may grow up to value his privacy greatly and prefer not to have his childhood images easily accessible online.

In my own professional life, I wouldn’t want my colleagues to stumble upon baby pictures of me with a simple Google search (even though I was a hella cute baby.) Therefore, I’ve made the decision to refrain from sharing his images online. I believe it’s important for him to have control over his digital footprint as much as possible, and I want to respect his future autonomy in this regard.

I completely agree with you. Unfortunately you’re wasting your breath on someone who can’t have an adult conversation and respond with arguments, just gets mocking / defensive and then blocks anyone who disagrees with them. You didn’t even say anything unkind. You were being very polite and considerate. I can’t say the same about myself but oh well, she annoyed me with her mocking and dismissive attitude towards my valid arguments.

you know, I think if she and I were IRL friends we could have a really great conversation about this topic! Unfortunately it just felt like she was trying to trivialize my reasons and therefore ridicule my choice. Lots of babies now have their ultrasound pics posted on social media (so even before birth they already exist online,) as well as their birth announcements with unique identifying data on there! There’s lots to consider when posting photos online- I don’t even post photos of my adult friends/family on my Instagram w/o first asking for their permission; people need to have authority over how and when their image is shared on the internet! I tried to message her privately to apologize and maybe try to continue our conversation but she’d already blocked me 🤷🏻‍♀️

I understand and agree. You definitely didn’t have anything to apologise for !
And I doubt you’d be friends IRL.

I really appreciate your alls opinions and how you guys have been so cordial and patient with your explanations/reasons. I never thought that people would be so fast to argue and put others down for whether they post their baby's on social or not. That wasn't my intention with this post, I was just genuinely curious as to what everyone's opinions on this topic were.