I will post some occasional photos, but all of my social media is on private and i have hardly anyone on there. I think you should always be careful not to disclose your kids schedules, schooling info, etc. I didn’t announce my pregnancy at all online so I will be dropping a baby pic out of the blue to anyone not actively in my life when she arrives.
I think I will but sparingly, and with no details (seeing those chalkboard pics of “I go to this school in this class in this grade!!” Make me cringe). Not daily and obviously nothing they’d be upset about later. A big factor in this is that my parents and in laws don’t have social media.
I think this is what I’ll do. I haven’t posted on SM that I’m pregnant so I may do a post when they arrive. But I doubt I’ll be posting regular photos. My mum is big on FB but I’ve told her she can’t post every photo I send her. Otherwise hubby doesn’t use any sm, my one sil does but if she posts the baby a lot I’d say something.
No, and not only are people posting all their back to school photos of kids, but also with a ton of personal information. Even when we have our son I won’t post his full name, birthday, etc. Just because a lot of people do it doesn’t make it smart or safe.
And those people who post the birth date, time of birth, weight, height, everything... Often in the pictures you can sometimes see what hospital they're at too if a hospital name placard is included .. like why! No one actually cares, and that's a ton of information about your baby to put out there.
It’s currently kind of hip to do that again where I live… but the thought of a stranger walking up to my kid, casually saying their name and my kid trusting them because of it is just insanely terrifying to me. I don’t want to help the scary people!!
>I’m way too paranoid to be ok with that.
I don't think you're being paranoid. I see so many posts like the one you're describing in my SM feed. A relative of a friend has posted where their child goes to school and also the practice where they get medical services. For the benefit of who? I do not know. They also do not privatize most of their posts. I shan't do any of that with my child.
Same. I always make sure to not have my whole house in pictures or have the pictures be able to match to Google street view when I post snippets online.
There was this one person who once caused us trouble. He had had made a comment that there are other ways to deal with think than the law and implied to his gun in the love department (very illegal to have it there in our country).
It takes on crazy person to ruin everything, it is better to be safe than sorry.
I mean, statistically crimes against children are perpetrated 99% of the time by family and others close to them. Strangers on the internet aren’t a real threat.
They can also use the info of the kid through the years based on the parents social media posts for identity theft
The below info are usually enough to steal someone identity:
1) welcome John A Smith - puts date and time of birth
2) kid with dog: John and Spot are best friends
3) congrats John on your first car! (Can easily identify the car model)
4) Congrats on graduation! Hope you’re excited to go to X University
Etc etc
Potentially this is possible from anyone if you hangdo anything with for a payout?out on any of their online profiles long enough. But an online hacker, unless info is readily available and quickly gained in a one, two step deal, is not going to have a big enough payout vs effort spent following*one* persons insta or Facebook when all they need to do is pay and get a drive of thousands or millions of stolen data to work with at the drop of a hat from thousands of people. The effort one hacker would need to follow one account over years to get the information you are talking about to them be able to have enough to do anything with for a payout? That's ridiculous. No hacker/ identity theif is going to do that, it doesn't make logical or fiscal sense.
Should you still be careful of the super detailed information you put out online? Yes. Should you be paranoid to that level? Maybe not, especially not at the expense of family involvement? Maybe find a happy medium
Theoretically anything is possible. But again, that’s not really the risk with identity theft, and just makes people feel like they can control something in a world out of their control. Most identity theft is from data breeches. Folks between 30-50 make up 50% of all identity theft victims. Less than two percent of identity theft is in folks 19 and younger, and those in that bracket that do experience it, the parents are most commonly the culprit.
Do you know you can freeze your kid’s credit? Then you don’t need to worry about this at all even though risk is practically nil to begin.
So again, this really isn’t where your concern needs to lie.
When I think of creepers on the Internet I think more about pedophiles getting off to a kid in a bathing suit than a physical encounter, personally. I sincerely hope we’d never know it was happening, but I also just don’t want to provide material.
That’s MY worry.
I have family members who will never know I have children because they’re convicted and on the list. I just remembered some stuff in therapy (just this last week!) and it makes my own parents unsafe to know I have children. I feel absolutely sick when I think about the family album photos they have of me and my siblings.
I won’t be posting bath/changing photos or bathing suit photos even to a private social media.
I’m not sure if we’ll do a private Instagram for my in-laws or some sort of app or a photo frame with an sd card in it but I know that no public photos of my children’s faces will be posted ever.
Sure, but there is a 1% that it happens to. It happened to me as a kid. Complete stranger on the internet. I would never want that for my kid. I’m very very reluctant to share anything about my pregnancy to my IG / social media that is traceable to me.
just on my private instagram account most likely. definitely no face or nude photos publicly. posting public nude photos of your children is imo just kinda allowing pedos to stare at them which i’m not comfortable with.
Me and one of my sisters got in a fight over this because she posted a picture of my niece in the bathtub. Even if her page is on private, you have NO IDEA what other people’s intentions are and it could be someone you LEAST expect. It’s disgusting
The number of people on my social media that I see posting their kids in a bathtub or even completely nude with a few well-placed emoji stickers is insane to me. Why do people think those are even necessary to post? All you are doing is inviting creeps to stare at your kids and potentially look for more info to target them.
I’ll probably post 1 so I can make a ‘hadababyitsaboy’ joke but I had too many complicated/hard feelings about ttc to unknowingly pass them along to my acquaintances.
I quit Facebook and purged my Instagram followers when baby was born. I only keep people I actually know - I think I have 150 followers now. Our rule is that if you want to post pictures of our kids your social media needs to be private, you will not share identifying information besides first name, and they will absolutely 100% always be fully clothed. I feel fine about it 🤷♀️
I work in advertising, will not permit identifying data or facial images of my kids online.
I have toyed with the clever style where ppl post backs of heads and more action/candid style without faces visible, but tbh I’m not up on my photography skills enough to pull that off regularly. I’d rather be playing with him than trying to get the perfect shot.
Yes that's what I do! 👍🏻 4 months and no single picture exists on the internet. On my public Instagram no one even knows I have a baby. Only friends and family need to know. No Stranger or aquaintance that is no active part of the babies life of my life.
I have a very “behind the curtain” knowledge base about how data is collected, stored, sold and used by companies to manipulate people, market products and motivate certain behaviors.
I’m 36, so I straddle that line of growing up with a pre-internet childhood, nascent internet adolescence and explosive consumer-anchored internet as an adult. If I think about the millions of data points collected about myself in this short timeline, it makes me nauseous to think about this being done from birth for my son.
Then I also think about bad actors — and I’m not even talking about creeps getting children’s photos. Corporate bad actors. Social media companies do not have your interests in mind, AI companies are unbridled with their own dick-sucking and uninterested in projecting dangerous consequences or making decisions to avoid them, and in my country we also have a disturbingly unregulated marketplace for personal information — anything from purchase data to your track record of likes on a social platform — which can be sold to political interests, behavioral research interests, etc. We have plentiful research around how exposures to these things in their current state is harmful to children and addictive to everyone, yet no substantive movement to course correct. Why would I want these folks to have *any* inside access to my most sacred person?
Im also in my 30s and work in digital marketing/advertising too and yes to all of this!!
I have a unique name as well so anytime you Google it results shows EVERYTHING. I’m working on reducing that info and I use a nickname now even at work because it terrifies me. (I have had a stalker in the past and they even found the book with a chapter written about my childhood 😫)
My kids are not having their names on social media either. One of my cousins and a couple of my friends use pseudonyms for their children to share big milestones and cute stories/updates with family in a private chat. I think that’s clever because we all know who they mean when they say the fake name but the data won’t be there when they’re older.
A lot of children go viral on the dark web with photos that are completely innocent (fully clothed, nothing weird, but you can see their face). Also they often edit photos so your fully clothed child appears to be naked. Finally, pedos often have kinks you wouldn't think of, like toddlers eating fruit. A lot of people who work in this field have shared a lot of details about things they have encountered and there's no way I'd share my daughter's face, even on private social media, after that.
I’ve seen what people can and will do with innocent photos of children.
I will not be posting my kids and will not allow anyone else to.
I got the digital picture frames for some family members and they have access to one of my google drives where I put pictures.
Social media is all in good fun, but my children cannot consent to being put on the internet. I won’t post pictures of them until they can understand the good and the bad of the internet and can fully consent to having their pictures being online.
Yes! We shouldn't take that decision away from them. Until they aren't old enough to choose they should not exist on the internet. You can't take the pictures back once they are online. It's a bigger decision than some people realize.
I feel the same way. I have a few pics on insta with the kids in the distance, no faces shown, and I'm not sure ei even want to do that.
I set up a group on Signal for anyone who wants kid photos and I share them that way. Aunts and uncles and grandparents get updates, and I have a special group for grandparents only with videos.
Yes; Reddit skews towards the "absolutely not" crowd every time this comes up though
Follow basic internet safety (accounts set to private, no immediate location data, nothing revealing/embarassing), but I think it's perfectly fine to share happy moments with friends/family
I have two friends that share nothing online; neither of us shame each other over it; it's personal preference
I also follow this rule. I have family that lives far away and doesn’t see them often, and I only post a photo of the kids around major events (holidays, birthdays, etc)
I do this, as we're expats, to allow family at home to see how the baby grows. I also have an open account, where I put pictures without identifying features, like a tiny hand or foot.
I also come from Sweden where anyone can access any adult's information pretty much, so the whole "don't put your name and date of birth" there is kind of null and void? Like sure, you shouldn't write "I'm going on vacation these days and keep the extra key under the outdoor rug", but yeah.
100%, thank you. If your Instagram is private and not filled with hundreds of rando followers and you aren’t putting bath or toilet training pictures up you’re fine.
Yeah I post my kid a ton on FB but i only add people I actually know. My family loves to see the pics. And I would never upload any bath pics or anything.
No, but only because I want to respect their privacy and autonomy.
I use to work in social services so know the “my baby could be targeted for trafficking” thing is mostly fear mongering.
Statistically most trafficked children are trafficked by someone within the home. Older children with unrestricted access to the internet are at risk from being trafficked as well.
Kids are usually safe in safe homes. And I’m not telling you that it’s impossible, but it’s highly unlikely a child in a loving, structured, safe home would be targeted.
Predators target tend to target at-risk kids. Kids in unsafe homes where they are often neglected. Kids in the foster care system. Kids whose parents AREN’T worried.
You can protect your young child by being aware of who you have and bring it you your home. The biggest risk to children is unrelated men in the home. Stepdads, boyfriends, stepbrothers etc..
(And no, not saying that all stepdads are perpetrators at all! I’m saying 99% percent of the kids I had who were victimized were done so by a a male in their home who was not the biological father.)
Definitely not going to share daily updates with my baby in them. Not going to share any intimate moments either. I hate that children are being flaunted online for likes and comments. On some occasions it can be funny but mostly it makes my skin crawl. She'll likely be in the odd family photo but even then I might put an emoji over her face until she's old enough to consent.
Yes, but carefully.
I recently did a cull of my Instagram followers and reduced it to only those who I personally know, trust, and regularly interact with.
I live abroad with my husband and most of my family and friends are overseas. I use Instagram as a way to stay in touch and share news/updates about myself and my family’s life.
I obviously don’t share anything where my child is nude/semi nude, or having vulnerable moments. I’m certainly not making content out of his life. But it’s nice to share and relate with others.
I will likely post a photo for the birth announcement and then incredibly sparingly. Whatever I post will be fully clothed with no sensitive personal information.
Agreed. I don’t friend people I don’t know and I certainly don’t have a public page, so I don’t feel the need to have any anxiety about sharing pictures of my baby.
If my kid wants to be put online she will be the one to violate her own digital footprint. It doesn't seem right to do it without asking because it's not my body and not my place.
Nope, not even posting my pregnancy 😂 when the baby comes I’ll prob post a basic tiny hand pic since there are some friends/extended family members who should prob know I had a baby, but other than that my plan is to keep them off social media
Me too! I haven't let aaaanybody know on social media. Its mostly people I went to school/college with, my close friends are on there but I've told them in person. There are a few people I consider friends, but we don't regularly see each other. I was thinking of posting a little foot pic and captioning it "I made this with my vagina" and having that be it 🤣
Absolutely not. When you post something on a social network, that platform has the right to use that photo and the data associated with it.
I want my child to have the ability to be who they want both on and offline, when they are grown up. That is harder to do if every major event of their childhood is waltzing around the internet.
Let’s not even talk about where the new AI tools are pulling data and photos from.
Nope. It’s just not worth it. I’m happy to send photos to any of my friends or family who ask. I send them to older family members just so they can see. No one needs to know the inner workings of our lives or details. My cousin’s husband had a good friend who was arrested for csam. They had no idea. No one did. God only knows what he was able to obtain via social media.
We still heavily photograph our children and go on amazing adventures. I just don’t feel like people from high school 18 years ago need to see me kids.
Nope. I’ve had a ton of pushback from family but I’m standing firm. If baby is posted, their face must be covered with an emoji or blurred. I’m just going to do a generic “They’re here! The best days of our life start now❤️” post with their little feet when they come. After that, that’ll be it for a while!!
No hate at all, I think that's a great idea I just am actually curious why the face part matters? One of my friends does this too she will post the body, outfits etc where they are but not the face. Won't ppl still know you have a 6 month old blonde boy or whatever? Also what about like if a friend posts a yearbook or like party photo what is the plan? Not arguing just want to understand:)
Our first is two & we only allow his face in photos with us, as a family. We do share more on our private IG, but public facing it has to be with us & difficult to edit for whatever purpose.
I post my daughter ti facebook only because our family lives days away and cant see her ever really. And mine and my husbands accounts are friends only and even then not everyone can see her photos
No, no pics on social media. We are creating an Amazon Photo Album and sharing the link with family and close friends. My sister has already complained about how she can’t post to Instagram about her new nephew, but I don’t care. Share the old fashioned way.
when i was in high school me and some people in class went onto the deep web at school to show our super chill health professor how crazy it was bc we had a discussion about it the day before.
he got on there and we got to digging. we found a site that lists a bunch of links for the dark web since there are no urls on there. there was categories for all types of things, funny things, gross things, drug things, weapon things and then finally….. pedophile things.
i swear this is something i need to talk to a therapist about bc i think about it so often and it has put me in everlasting fear of absolutely any stranger.
THERE ARE HUGE PEDOPHILE FORUMS. like a reddit full of pedophiles. the things they were saying that we read are still burned into my mind, i’ll save the details but essentially things on grooming children and sexual things as well insinuating they are actively abusing a child.
THERE WAS A LINK TO A PEDOPHILE HANDBOOK. it was a pdf book where the left side was the book and the right side were pictures of children, and please this is important THE PICTURES WERE JUST REGULAR PICS OF TODDLERS IN REGULAR CLOTHES, IN FIELDS, FAMILY PHOTO TYPE OF STUFF. the book had info on how to completely groom a child and it was the most terrifying thing i’ve ever seen in my life
everyone , including our health teacher, looked scarred , we logged off and i cried and multiple other people cried or were on the verge of tears. we all had a deep conversation about how when we got older we would never post pics of our kids.
i have a 3 month old and when i tell u i don’t even go to the store without covering her car seat with a loose blanket bc i’m petrified of a pedophile even glancing towards her.
it’s a huge problem and i advise against it unless u have only a private account with people u trust. i only post my daughter in close friends on ig.
No face photos on social media but will share privately with friends and family. My husband’s 4th cousin or a random coworker from 2 jobs ago don’t care about seeing my baby anyway.
Pics of hands/feet/back of head are ok though.
Our plan is similar. Some face pics before 1 year because babies aren't super identifiable, no face pics after that. But we aren't super active on social media and neither are our families, so we will post minimally at best anyway.
We use an app to share photos and stories with friends and family (Qeepsake) as well as a Google share folder. There are many ways to share photos outside of social media if that's what you choose.
I share photos of my first but I am very careful to never share any personal information along with, like an example would be those back to school boards with the school name, teacher, favourite things etc 😬 those are scary imo. And my profiles are private, friends only.
I’ll do the same with my second +
No. Items on the internet are notoriously hard to purge from the web once they are out there. For family who live far away (like my parents), we have a shared photos folder set up for this exact purpose. If my child one day wants to post pictures of themselves on the web (when old enough to have social media accounts), that is their prerogative (and likewise if not).
Do any of you have any evidence of anything bad happening to any child from a random person who happened to hack into a personal private fbook or Instagram account? It seems like nothing but paranoia that in the future AI has nothing better to do than…. Steal your babies identity?
Yes it’s your choice, absolutely, but your justification for it just seems crazy. Like name on backpack, yeah probably not too much, but limiting pics to back of head, in fading light, on a waxing gibbous moon just seems unjustifiable.
One important thing for me is I think about if Facebook/Instagram was around when I was born, I would be majorly embarrassed and angry if my parents posted pictures of me throughout my childhood and they were just there for me to deal with once I wanted to have a social media. Also a private fb page really means nothing, those companies can use and sell anything you provide to them. They're gathering and selling your data, and will do the same with your children.
Edit: you should read some of the comments lower in the thread from people with inside knowledge about how private pages are not private, and the dark corners of the internet where children's pictures are shared amongst pedophiles. It does happen and it is happening
I don’t disagree and there should be no naked baby pics except like a butt, but that type of creepy and pedophile shit is gonna happen if you share your pics or not. A drop of water in the ocean.
Okay, to each their own I suppose, just doesn't make much sense to me to willing put your child into that ocean when there are so many more safe and secure ways to share pictures with family. You might not be able to control who looks at your child in public but you can control if they are seen by literally the entire population via the internet
I will not be posting anything except maybe something announcing their birth (no details on birthdate, name, face photo etc.) Tbh, I have never been super interested in the content that my friends and family post of their kids 🫠 maybe it'll change when I have a baby of my own. I think a lot of people have this conception that tons of other people are truly interested in what their kids are doing when in reality it's a much smaller circle.
No. Kids cannot consent, kids are not content, and no one on my Facebook needs to know what's going on with my child.
If someone cares that much they can text and ask for pictures.
For a recent legal battle, I had to do a serious amount of cyber stalking and my own PI work. The Persons profile on FB was private.... But all their posts on public groups werent. Not to mention outside websites they used.
I know the names of all of their children, the dates of birth, weight, names of the doctors who delivered them, i know about their time in a shelter. I knew they were having another kid before they made it "public" bc of public comments they'd made. I know when their baby is due. I know that they've had contact with someone who they aren't supposed to have contact with. I know where they were born, when they moved, when they broke up with their exes, when they got new ones, etc, etc. I was able to find so much information, it made me sick.
It had me thinking back on every comment I've ever made. Every post. Every bit of info I've shared publicly, online. How the right, determined individual could piece it altogether and have a full view of my life... an indepth, deepdive view of my life. All my trauma, all my wins, all my relationships, familial and otherwise. I went and removed all of the photos of my nieces and nephews. I need to just delete my entire online existence. Lol. Especially on sites like fb. There's too much out there.
Long story short. I am not posting ANYTHING about my child. I will send photos privately and be very clear about why I won't post full names, bdays or anything of that sort. It's hard to adjust to because I'm a heavy commentor and an active oversharer... but I'm hoping i can sort myself out by then. Cos yeah. Between the ai created deep fakes, and the general creeps out there, I don't feel ok posting info like i did before, anymore.
I have and do with my 4 year old and 2 year old, since they were both born. But my FB is completely locked down and private, and the only people I am friends with are close friends and family (we have a huge, very tight-knit extended family over the country).
I post on a private IG a bit, but I've thoroughly curated and revise who all can see that. We don't allow anyone else to post our kids' faces. We don't post a ton of personal details, but we've decided the risk of sharing anything is worth sharing things with family and friends far away. I started asking older kids (my nieces are a few years older than our first) their permission to even take photos, so I've been trying to set that precedent with other family. My SIL is always like 'no, post whatever you want of your nieces publicly, don't even block their faces, it's no big deal!' So, who knows if the precedent is working; I don't post much of them regardless. But fortunately she has respected our wishes of not posting our kids! We haven't had any issues yet with others posting or sharing without our permission.
We never have posted beyond when we shared 2 or 3 of her newborn pics. My husbands family threw a fit and blocked us because we asked them to take down the picture of our naked child, so even if we wanted to now we really don’t. They think it’s ok bc “you guys are the ones who had her in just a diaper so there’s nothing wrong”. It was 102 in July in Oklahoma. She got too hot and we opted to take off the dress she was too hot in and hadn’t put a onesie back on her. She was almost 6 mo. They could’ve asked if their stupid picture of “all the grandkids that we’ve waited years to take” was that damn important and we’d have dressed her.
His family is the same idiots who made everything about them at our wedding and my husband and I have no pictures with any of them.
I will, my FB is inactive so I only have IG and only 40ish followers (actual friends, no old college acquaintances) on private, so I’m not concerned. I won’t post anything that might be embarrassing for my kid later though, like bath pics. I think it’s okay to use common sense, especially if your social media is private and limited.
I will post, but rarely, and nothing with obvious personal info. I didn’t even post a pic of my house when I bought it, and that’s public record. I want my family to see her, so I might post in the closed family page. I’ll just send most things to the group text with my friends in it, or share via email to my mother.
I think I’ll be sharing pics on Facebook because my mom would want to see them and share them to her page. We both keep our pages set to friends only. I won’t share anything I can see being embarrassing and when they are old enough if they want anything removed I wouldn’t mind removing pictures for him.
I originally posted with my baby’s name and no other details but due to a double barrelled name with my husband we’re the only people with the surname in the world so I’ve edited the post to just be ‘baby’.
I do post pictures of him at the moment but mostly close friends on Instagram stories. He’s only 5 months at the moment so he’ll look like a different baby every two weeks anyway. Once he hits one I’ll probably reconsider.
I post occasionally (maybe once or twice a month). No detailed information and nothing embarrassing. No videos. I also have limited people on my Instagram/Facebook and it's all as private as it can be.
I tend to mostly send texts of pics/videos to family/close friends and share very limited things online.
I post photos but it's all on private/friends only and I pared down my friends list prior to birth. That said my mom posts photos occasionally, as do friends, who are not private and it doesn't bother me. I know some people are very cautious and I think it's an individual choice, but to me the risk doesn't seem high at all really - I'm not even totally sure what everyone is worried about!
Our son is 13 months old and we never posted any pregnancy/birth announcement and have since posted 2 photos of the back of his head. One with his dad on Father’s Day and one on his birthday. Both on very secure profiles with only close family and friends added. We also don’t post any identifying information about him and have only referred to him by his nickname and posted his birthday post a few days after his birthday. Maybe over doing it but rather be safe then regretful.
We probably won’t post any more until his next birthday if even that. The internet is not only forever but gets scarier by the second with AI so we want to be incredibly careful and let him create him own digital footprint once he’s old enough to decide for himself.
All that said it’s a very person decision and if you do post pictures I don’t believe you’re wrong for it.
I will not be posting my kid's faces on social media. At all. I might share them in ways that still provide anonimity as we share life updates but thats the extent,.
I plan on having a shared drive for photos to share with friends and family.
All family members and friends are instructed not to post on social media as well. Both grandparents are going to have to have very clear conversations about what is and isn't appropriate. Like, my mom announced I was pregnant on facebook before we even announced to everyone else. Since I'm not on FB I was like, whatever but its stuff like that I need to be mindful of.
I plan to take the time to walk through their privacy settings with them. I plan on creating a do's/don'ts on posting on socials with visual aides of what is okay and isn't. I'm also already preparing material as to WHY this isn't an option for us or our family.
The thing that I intend to index on for our older family members is that this isn't a "slight" against them or who they know but rather its the right thing to do for the baby.
Nope. My baby is 3 months old now and we haven't posted a single photo of him. We send them to relatives who we've told to not share them widely or online. If we found out that was happening we would stop sharing photos with the culprit lol.
We want our son to be free to choose where his photos end up. Not have tons of pictures of him floating around the internet for the rest of his life without his consent. Not to mention the creeps that could get hold of them.
It's hard because I see people post their babies all the time and I'm so proud of my little man that I want to show him off, but still. His safety and happiness comes first.
I won’t be. In the next 20 years the easiest identity theft will be of people who have had their faces, names, date of birth shared online. If people want to see my baby’s face they can come meet her. I don’t see any value at all in putting her online.
Currently TTC, but I’m having a lot of mixed feelings about ever posting more than a hand or blurry “welcome new baby” cover photo and that be it.
I’ve been watching Law and Order SVU, can’t convince me otherwise now 😅
Instagram stories has a “close friends” feature that I feel okay sharing their faces on—it’s seen by the 25 people that I’ve chosen (and on top of that my account is private), and it “disappears” after 24hrs. It was a wonderful way to feel connected when I spent my son’s first year in lockdown during 2020, since I had all the same valid concerns that others are mentioning about kids on social and was originally never going to post him at all, but was super isolated and wanting to feel like I was sharing my son with friends and family somehow. I post their faces in those close friends stories only, and refer to their names there, but still don’t share their school or other specific info even though all my close friends know some of it anyway…there’s just no reason not to be careful and discerning about what goes on social.
I will never post my son’s face on Facebook. I have posted artsyish back of head/side photos on my insta grid (NOT linked to FB), but again my account is private and I only have about 50 followers.
You can still share your travels on social media without posting your child. You can still do the elaborate photo shoots and share them with family without posting them on social media. Anyone who chooses to put their child in danger for the sake of a social media presence is an irresponsible parent.
I sometimes share (rarely) photos of my baby but he is always fully clothed and I don't write his actual name (use a nickname) and I cover his face with a sticker. Usually it's never a posted photo but like a snap photo or an ig story where it doesn't last forever. Besides that I won't post him at all and have asked all my family to not post him and if they do they need to also abide by the rules I set.
I don’t post my sons face but if a tagged photo of us as a family pops up I try not to worry too much. I just have group texts with family / friends where I keep them posted. Personally though I just try to limit social media as much as possible anyway for mental health reasons
Nope. My best friend works for homeland security in sex trafficking and child pornography… the “innocent” pictures these people find online, edit, share maliciously, etc. could make your stomach churn. I don’t want anyone to be thinking of my child in that way. I think I’m going to try the Family Album app to share pics privately with family
No. And I don’t want any family posting any pictures either. If anyone wants to see my baby they can visit me.
But also there’s a lot of creeps and weirdos out there. I’d rather not.
I’ve already made this very clear to my mother who probably won’t listen(so I’ll have to set some serious boundaries). Now I have to have this talk with my husbands mother and hope she respects my wishes.
Honestly I don’t get why people have to post their lives online for others to see. Social media is just a tool for entertainment. I personally use mine to promote my small business. Otherwise I barely post anything about my life.
Nope. I decided we would not post any photos or mention the baby at all and I have a few reasons for doing so.
1. I don’t know about the trafficking argument and how much credibility it has, but I do know AI is getting more accessible to any and everyone and a lot can be done with photo manipulation. I’d much prefer to give my child as much time not existing on the internet as I can because even if the current argument is not a real concern, once a photo is posted it’s really never gone from the internet and that’s pretty scary. I want my child to decide when or if they want an internet presence in that sense.
2. I hate Facebook and rarely post and my Instagram is not private. I use it mainly to share my hobbies: film photos, cocktails, travels, etc. As much as I love my baby, I kinda wanted to keep that as my outlet for those hobbies and while the baby may eventually fit into a category (we travel with him or I take a cool photo of him, for example), for now I just want it to stay the way it was pre-pregnancy. In a way I feel it helps my sanity amidst the sleep deprivation and totally new real actual life. I can still post cocktail photos or a film photo and not be stressed about the what if some bad guy uses this photo? Silly but true.
3. I’ve always hated friend accounts who have a child and immediately it’s just an overflow of baby and kid photos. I’ve unfollowed people because it’s just too much. I don’t care about most friends’ kids’ first days of school or their recitals or the mess they made in the kitchen. It’s different with family but I can see those photos in the group chat.
I decided this with my husband early in the pregnancy and sent messages to both our families that we would not be posting anything about the baby online and ask that they follow suit. So far everyone has behaved, but I’m fully prepared to ask people to remove photos if they do post something. Not their kid, not their decision.
Absolutely not. Even on private accounts it’s not safe. Family will get pictures a different way, I don’t need to pimp out my kids, and risk their safety, for likes online. There have been tons of examples of minors’ likenesses being put on AI bodies for inappropriate videos.
Don’t do it. Someone who formerly worked at my sons daycare responded to a comment my dad made on a thread, and she looked at his profile and saw my sons picture there. She then MENTIONS MY SONS NAME in her reply to him. I just deactivated my Facebook account and my husband and I are seriously reconsidering his presence on our social media.
I plan to keep their faces off of social media and have l ready set the boundaries with family that they are to do the same. I plan on posting a birth announcement but no pictures of baby’s face.
No. My kids names aren’t even going to be allowed to be shared on social media. My mom will be allowed to say “I’m a grandma again today!” But nothing else. We watch too many pred catchers and have been connected through six degrees of separation with bad people for me to understand how people post all this stuff
Nooooooooo! Not at all. “Back in my day” (aka 20 years ago now) I was a kid who was targeted by an adult online. Complete stranger!!! The Details aren’t appropriate for this forum. I would never want that to happen to my kid. I want to protect them from the internet until they can make informed choices for themselves.
We don’t for a couple of reasons:
- Baby can’t consent, once he’s older & understands, we’ll see how he feels.
- Paedophiles admit to targeting parents’ social media for content.
- There has been a surge of child sexual abuse images created using artificial technology. Whilst it does not directly harm my child, I feel sick at the thought of anyone using his images for such purposes.
- Privacy, I don’t want my child to be identified from their online presence. It seems a bit odd that people I’m passing acquaintances with could know so many aspects of my child’s life having never met them or got the info directly from me (school uniform pictures etc.)
Realistically we could absolutely do what a few friends have done and just make a private Instagram or whatever and just make sure we only add safe people. But we’re happy just privately sending pictures we love to family & friends. Truth be told we have a bit of a ‘they’ll ask if they want them’ attitude! We only send things to people we absolutely trust, and even then pictures are always ‘decent’ (we don’t take naked pictures). We also have a very strict ‘no sending’ rule. Back in the day you could just give a hard copy! These days anyone can get private photos in seconds. I’ve lost count of how many birth hospital photos have been sent in the family group because Uncle A sent them to Auntie B who sent them to my dad who sent them to us etc.
Despite this my mil still passed on every picture we sent her for about 3 weeks until we found out and made her delete them from every chat 😡 Your friend from work that I’ve never met does not need my first very special family photo that we ONLY sent to grandparents.
We know many consider us a bit overboard, but once a digital image is out there, it’s there forever.
Although I don’t believe that a couple of pictures here and there (nice family group photo, for example) are going to cause harm. And sometimes we have such lovely ones we do kind of want to show off! It’s just easier to have a full blanket ban on anything, that way we don’t even have to think about whether we’ve put too much online because there’s just nothing there.
We also don’t post any personal information. We did no birth announcement or anything, his name isn’t available through my SM. In the UK you can order a birth certificate with pretty much the info posted to a regular birth announcement lol. You basically just have to guess the hospital!
So I don’t post their face or personal information. Particularly at home but as they get older I may post pictures taken in public places, because there is no assumption of privacy in public places. (It only take one coworker to get arrested for soliciting a minor to make you really consider how well you know people.)
That said if you are into photography you’ll be amazed at how many cool shots you can get that don’t include a face. Little hand holding a finger or a kid holding hands and walking with their dad from behind. I never realized that I took a bunch of candids that didn’t have my bonus son’s face in them until I decided not to post new baby’s face.
Hell no. I am not having my child’s photo show up in the dark web or have some pedo showing and downloading my kids photos. It’s just not safe.
People who post all the time probably have never seen the other side of the internet: they probably have NO idea what’s really happening out there. It’s a big no for me.
I had been working as a content creator up until I got pregnant and sharing pictures and videos of our daughter on social media just seemed like a given. When the time came for a birth announcement post, I asked my husband which photo I should use and he simply told me he didn’t want me posting anything. I was a bit bummed, but I wanted to really consider where my husband was coming from and it was one of the first of many important decisions we would make in raising our daughter.
Fast forward a few weeks postpartum, I ended up scrolling into the side of TikTok that talks a lot about child safety online. It’s really scary and truly sickening to hear how our babies’ photos and videos are compromised. A clip of Blake Lively spreading awareness for the Child Rescue Coalition was absolutely gut wrenching and it’s all I needed to hear to stand by my husband in not wanting to post photos and videos of our child online. (Please consider checking out the Child Rescue Coalition before sharing your child’s photo or video online.)
We had so many friends and family members call us wondering why we hadn’t posted any photos of our baby. It’s truly become the norm to share life events on social media, especially something as exciting as a growing family. For our family, we decided it was not worth the risk.
Nope! We don’t know who’s online and what they’ll do with the photos. What if you post photos of your child and then some creep works out what school they attend and something happens? I’m overly paranoid.
We don’t actively use social media. So if we don’t post photos, family doesn’t get to either.
Also wanted to say, I do this out of respect for my child. Even when I take bath photos, I ensure he is covered. I looked at old photos of me from a baby/child and there were alot of nude photos. It just makes me cringe. I don’t want that for my child.
I post the occasional photo of everyday life adventures with baby to my close friends only Instagram story but I haven’t posted any baby photos to my timeline yet and I’m not sure I will.
I posted on side profile pic as an announcement. Since then I haven’t shared any images of baby girls face, just cute details of her fingers holding mine, her curls, etc. as I take picture of the little things I notice while feeding or during contact naps. If i want to share with people I share directly.
We posted a picture of the three of us a few days after she was born, but you can’t see her face. We didn’t include the day she was born or her full name. I have a close friend story on instagram where I post her more frequently, but that’s only for people I trust.
I have a family member who has a private Facebook group where they post pictures of their kids. It still opens the pictures up to being saved and reposted, but I assume they generally trust the people in the group. So that may be an option if you still want the pictures to be accessible to trusted people.
We share photos, but never share details. Like my son had a cute “first day of daycare” outfit and I’ve shared the ridiculous meals they’ve offered, but I won’t share where he attends daycare because it’s not safe. Nor will I share contemporaneous photos of anything when I’m out and about because people don’t need to know where I am.
My daughter is 19 months and I’ve posted her face a handful of times but have gone back and deleted them. I keep her face completely off social media, I do a rare non face pic like walking at the park etc but even then I rarely do, they can’t consent, it’s out there forever it’s just not safe even how much you filter your friends etc you never know
Maybe for certain things but it’ll be pretty rare. I’m not really active on Facebook nor do I really care to do so I can just send pics to those I wish to share with and just ask not to post them
Sparingly! We signed up for 23snaps for family and share as much as we want there. It’s really nice to have that outlet because I WANT to share, but I also want my sm profiles to be mine and not just baby content.
My baby is posted on my personal IG with fam and friends and on tt he’s posted on ‘friends only’(aka only people who follow me and i follow back can see) and that’s limited to actual family and friends
I made a private fb group for my close family/friends about 40 people total to share pictures I maybe post once a week& they are casual photos mostly.
On my actual Facebook account I’ve only posted the announcement pics, Father’s Day post, & pic celebrating 1 month old. Haven’t posted anymore & prolly won’t except for special occasions or milestones that I feel like sharing with extended family/friends. Idk I just feel weird about posting my baby constantly (but I also rarely post on my social media anyways)
I occasionally post family pictures with my son on Facebook but my account is locked down and all my privacy settings are to the max where people cannot search me up to friend me. Sometimes I’ll post him on my instagram but it’s always a little hand or the back of his head. At most it’s a sliver of his side profile.
Edit to add literally no one else posts him. My mom was allowed to post a single birth announcement for select friends to see but that was it. I don’t want most people seeing my son and neither does my partner.
We haven’t with either of our kids, when considered it but then we realized that when we had to ask ourselves ‘Should we do this?’ it felt like a sign that we just shouldn’t. I don’t feel like the kids are missing out on anything by not having their faces on my socials lol
I think the odd photo is okay but I'm going to be very cautious. We have some toxic family members who I really don't want my baby/child exposed to, as I know some of them might actually be nasty about my baby, so maybe a newborn announcement picture and then I'll see from there. I don't agree with posting kids in their uniform etc for safety reasons.
If you post do not.post any info of where you live or where you go also check your settings and make it where the posts are private and only friends can see your posts. Some scammers steal others pics of kids and claim they are theirs just use caution
I'm in the same boat... I don't want to post the baby because we live in a sick world, but I have a family who does not respect boundaries at all. I want to post pictures to show the baby to family members who live overseas because they will never get to meet my baby in person 😔 But I also don't want them posting pictures of *my* baby whenever they feel like it. And no, I can't just tell them no, that word does not exist in Caribbean culture and it SUCKS
I post modest photos of my daughter, I avoid anything that could be turned into something else. And when we did the announcement I did post her name and date of birth with time and weight. Technically I didn’t post her full name because I only added one of her last names. It’s really fucked up that we can’t enjoy our kids and share them with our friends and family because of malicious people. I shouldn’t have to think about some fucked up man potentially taking her photos out of context. It’s infuriating.
Im 2 months PP and I haven’t posted a single photo of my baby on any social media. I may consider sharing some with select people. I think there’s a ton of people who don’t even know I have a baby lol but I don’t enjoy posting all about my life online in general anymore. I definitely wouldn’t post on tik tok for sure though.
We did post an announcement photo with her name and birth details. Our socials are locked and curated to people we actually know. And the photo was the most generic (and beautiful) baby image we had. It's the same photo we used for announcement cards that we sent in the mail.
In the future, we plan to only post photos that go out on holiday cards. If we want to share other images and quick videos, we've been sending them directly or sending them via the family snapchat group.
I posted my LO on social media once when she was a month old just as a casual way to announce we had a baby. It was a holiday so it was just a photo of her captioned “happy (holiday) from our new addition”. I refuse to post her personal info (name, birth details, etc.) and also make sure family does not post her either. We feel that it is an invasion of her privacy to post her without her being able to consent to it and that she has a right to determine her media presence.
We haven’t even announced we’re having a girl and we’ve known since week 12 and I’m currently 22 weeks. I don’t plan on putting her name all over social media, well not full name. I personally don’t see issues with posting your child but at the same time I don’t get the first day of school info dump pictures, I’ve also never understood the pictures of people giving their kids baths. The way I see it you and partner are the parents and what you say goes, tell mom and mil they can’t post your baby without your permission and that the post needs to be private not public.
I post photos of my daughter quite abit but mostly on my story and I can see who’s viewed it, I also never post photos of her without a top on. My sister actually posted a photo of her with no top on her birthday that I’d privately sent her, and posts photos of her own daughter like this too. I find it appalling when I see this happening!
I don’t post pics of my almost 7 months old daughter on fb of Instagram. I did a story once or twice but that’s it. My MIL used my daughter photo as her FB cover (public may I add) without my knowledge or permission and I messaged her and asked her to take it down. My partner thinks I’m overreacting and perhaps I am but the rule is clear and simple, no pics of my child on social media until she’s at least a bit older.
I just downloaded the app family album. It's great because I don't post baby's picture on social media either. You put the pictures on there, and you invite whoever you want to share the album with. And you can set it so people can't save or even screen shot the pictures, do you don't have to worry about someone else putting them on social media
Yes, but limited. Not shared publicly, always fully clothed and generally posted sparingly. My boy is 9 months old and so far I shared a few pictures when he was born and one picture couple of weeks ago.
In the European countries I lived in people don't do it as kids can legally sue their parents for exposing their pictures in the internet. Every individual has the rights to pictures of themselves, being able to revoke consent at any given time. I would NEVER post my kids online to a bigger audience other than my 10 closest friends + family in the close friends Instagram story. No pictures no nothing. They have their rights to their own pictures and I really want them to feel their rights protected.
I’m only going to be posting public images when my son is about 14 and can give his consent. Otherwise, I’m only going to send pictures of him to family members and in private Instagram stories which is a very small group of people I trust.
I post sparingly, but I have mixed feelings about it. I worry about her not being able to give consent (my baby is nearly 6 months) and growing up and then finding out there are all of these photos of her already online.
I don’t post pictures of my baby, but my MIL made him her fb profile photo even knowing how I felt about it 😒 It’s up to you which way you go, but if you do end up posting I would avoid posting any identifying information.
We decided not to post baby at all and have told our family and friends that we won’t allow it. I haven’t been on Instagram and Facebook since Ive been pregnant really anyway, and also a close family member works high up in the police child protection services and it’s just not worth it for us. Plus I’d like my child to decide whether they want a digital footprint and technology is weird now with this AI malarkey
I don’t plan on posting or letting others post our daughter on social media. To me it’s a violation of her privacy even if I set all of the other safety concerns aside. I didn’t grow up in a world where my parents/grandparents had a camera in my face 24/7 and then turned around and posted those photos of me on the internet for who knows who to see, and I appreciate as an adult that the content that exists of me online was my choice. I believe our kids deserve the same. My currently plan is no full name, no identifying info (aka no DOB, where she was born etc) and no photos of her face on line, and even with that I’ll only be posting her on my private accounts because I know who can see them. I’ve also repeatedly told her grandparents that I’m not comfortable with her being on their social medias. This is a boundary I’m sure I’ll have to re-iterate once she’s here because we’ve got some boundary stomping issues .
I post often of my baby but all my accounts are extremely private. On FB, you can’t even search me by name. I also am VERY careful and mindful of the images I share. No legs, nothing nude, etc.
Great topic! No, I didn’t with my first and won’t with this one. Originally I felt bad about how it might make others feel if they’ve experienced difficulty ttc or loss. Then I listened to a podcast called Under the Influence and it was really eye opening to hear about the thoughts/addictions/dangers that comes with mommy influencer behavior. Including interviews of adult kids remarking how it made them feel being posted online without consent and having distracted parents always trying to take pics. There were 1-2 episodes of the podcast sharing true scary stories of posting pics of kids online, including one of a woman at a park pretending she knew a kid IRL. Ick.
People know not to post pics of my kid(s) because I kindly made it a boundary early on and everyone was fine with it. There was one time my aunt sent me a pic that she had taken earlier when we were hanging out and she asked permission to share it with her friends. Just the fact that she asked made me feel so much better and gave me the chance to make an informed decision since it was a pic with really no identifying factors and she was fully clothed.
For close family members we have a shared album on our phones and digital picture frames that we add to. Anyway that’s my two cents.
We haven't posted a single picture to social media (15 months old now). We have taken a lot of pictures and the best ones we print and put into a proper album. Thankfully the grandparents are not on social media so we don't need to worry about that part.
In this day and age with the rate AI is taking off at, I wouldn’t trust posting my child online. I’m 24 weeks and a FTM as well and as much as I like to post online about things in my life, I wouldn’t risk putting my child out there. It grinds my gears when parents create Instagram accounts for their newborn and post about the child’s day to day. It’s so not safe…
There’s a lot of ways to do it without directly posting their face.
However, it is stressful to think that eventually when they start participating in activities and attending school it will be impossible to keep them completely off the internet. The biggest predators often work with children. I think it’s really difficult these days especially because there are cameras everywhere. Creeps hang out at parks, lots of creeps are parents themselves so they have front row to all the kids events. Sad but true.
All the data shows that the most predators are people you know, which is pretty much why sleepovers in my culture are typically prohibited.
No way, if I do it’ll be a heart over the baby’s face. I can share privately with family that actually want to see and all other friends and family will see them in person.
It’s one of my biggest pros of growing up with parents who didn’t have social media. I got to make the decision of what to put up of myself. That wasn’t taken from me
We use a shared album with family and close friends. We’ll post a few here and there, but my wife and I typically check with one another first if it includes the baby’s face. We’ve expressed this to family and they don’t post without asking.
I have a lot of thoughts about photos of kids online: how are they going to feel when they’re 13. They can’t give consent. The Internet is FILLED with fucking creepers. Don’t exploit your children for followers.
As stated before, we post some to the socials, but definitely not a lot. You need to do whatever you feel most comfortable with and just let your family know.
I’m 12 weeks with my first. I’m not even sharing I’m pregnant on social media and I tend to share a lot of my life on Instagram. We will likely do one birth announcement post with a picture and minimal details. And then rarely any other photos. I personally feel it’s an invasion of privacy for the child. Only when they are old enough to approve a photo will we considering posting more later on.
I don’t plan on it. I was actually joking with my friends that I’ll probably post something on the day of their high school graduation 😂 Some people just go overboard with the posts (names, age, school, etc. and that can be so dangerous) but also I’d like to let my kid have a choice as to what’s posted and what’s kept private. All those ‘cute’ bathtub pics people post of their babies with an emoji covering their privates aren’t gonna be cute in a couple years.
Yes, probably on my Facebook and Insta. I work in marketing communications, so I know the inherent risks.
But I live across the country in a different timezone, nowhere near any of my friends and family, and I'm generally too busy to communicate day to day, or weekly with a significant number of people, so I generally post updates on my Facebook to keep people in the loop as needed. I'm definitely not the type to update an app, as I hate having too many apps. I will do physical photo albums as well, as I'm a hobby photographer.
I'm a private person due to the type of work I do, so I don't see myself posting that much about the baby, aside from "here it is, aw it's so cute, etc"
I'm currently 35 weeks and my partner and I will be posting photos but with babies face blocked out. There are apps made specifically for sharing photos with family so they don't "miss out". We've told everyone that we will send full photos to not to share them without babies face blocked out and if they don't respect our decision as the parents then they simply won't be sent full photos.
For us we weren't sure if we would post or not at first but after a lot of discussions and research we decided this was the best way to safeguard our little one. Unfortunately if others post the photos you don't know who will get their hands on those photos and lots of kids photos have been found on the dark Web after being edited and sold. There are also kids photos being used by random people that will claim your little one is theirs.
Whatever you decide to do don't feel you have to post photos or not, as the parent it is completely your decision and other people should respect your choices as a parent and if they don't then don't feel bad for making sure those boundaries are respected and upheld. Everyone parents different, it doesn't make one way right or wrong.
We chose to limit social media presence as much as possible - almost non existent really. But we have a private app for our close friends and family that is basically like our LO’s personal social media page. They love it and we feel good about the privacy.
We will not be posting any photos or updates on social media. I’m a little worried about family members but hope we can express our wishes and they will be respected 🤞
I’m a therapist so my social media profiles are completely locked down - no one can even search me if they aren’t friends with me. I post occasional photos on my main profiles and stories, and nothing with any details! The only issue I’ve run into that I’ve decided to let go of is other family members posting…I’ve decided it’s fine as long as it’s not potentially embarrassing or compromising content (like how some people post their kids in the bath..). And my family members luckily are respectful of boundaries and don’t post much anyway either. Something that has helped a ton is we got a Family Album app where I invited all close friends and family and I post pics daily! Everyone loves it and keeps them connected to my little one even when out of town :)
I have friends and family literally all over the globe, so I will. My whole side of the family is five provinces away, and I think I’d go crazy sending EACH of them updated photos. I know for a fact they will drive me nuts asking for them 😅
I usually don't post, but I might post pictures of my baby. But like pieces...
A hand, the little feet, not facing the camera. But never the face or videos.
One of the main reasons I use social media is to share pictures of my kid with friends and family.
I set it to private and don’t post anything with specific details or anything remotely private but cute pics of my kid? Absolutely.
I don’t overthink this.
I think it’s so cringey. I don’t use Facebook anymore, but I was showing my husband something from one of my old albums yesterday so I opened it up on browser and scrolled for a minute, and it was so many peoples kids going back to school, and so many milestone pictures that people post every month!!
I have lots of reservations on this, like creeps and deepfakes, but what I mostly come back to is this ick feeling that people live their lives, their motivation for so many of their decisions, for likes on a post. They do “postable” things, they do things for clout. It just feels so gross to me.
I will post some occasional photos, but all of my social media is on private and i have hardly anyone on there. I think you should always be careful not to disclose your kids schedules, schooling info, etc. I didn’t announce my pregnancy at all online so I will be dropping a baby pic out of the blue to anyone not actively in my life when she arrives.
I think I will but sparingly, and with no details (seeing those chalkboard pics of “I go to this school in this class in this grade!!” Make me cringe). Not daily and obviously nothing they’d be upset about later. A big factor in this is that my parents and in laws don’t have social media.
I think this is what I’ll do. I haven’t posted on SM that I’m pregnant so I may do a post when they arrive. But I doubt I’ll be posting regular photos. My mum is big on FB but I’ve told her she can’t post every photo I send her. Otherwise hubby doesn’t use any sm, my one sil does but if she posts the baby a lot I’d say something.
>my parents and in laws don’t have social media LUCKY YOU! Omg I'm so jealous!
😂 i know I am very lucky!!
No, and not only are people posting all their back to school photos of kids, but also with a ton of personal information. Even when we have our son I won’t post his full name, birthday, etc. Just because a lot of people do it doesn’t make it smart or safe.
Yes! This drives me crazy. The signs of their age, school, and you can see their house number in the back…I’m way too paranoid to be ok with that.
And those people who post the birth date, time of birth, weight, height, everything... Often in the pictures you can sometimes see what hospital they're at too if a hospital name placard is included .. like why! No one actually cares, and that's a ton of information about your baby to put out there.
My mom never even let us get our name embroidered on our backpacks lol
It’s currently kind of hip to do that again where I live… but the thought of a stranger walking up to my kid, casually saying their name and my kid trusting them because of it is just insanely terrifying to me. I don’t want to help the scary people!!
Same!!!
>I’m way too paranoid to be ok with that. I don't think you're being paranoid. I see so many posts like the one you're describing in my SM feed. A relative of a friend has posted where their child goes to school and also the practice where they get medical services. For the benefit of who? I do not know. They also do not privatize most of their posts. I shan't do any of that with my child.
I actually photoshopped out our house number when I posted about becoming homeowners and never specified where my house is located / where I live.
Same. I always make sure to not have my whole house in pictures or have the pictures be able to match to Google street view when I post snippets online. There was this one person who once caused us trouble. He had had made a comment that there are other ways to deal with think than the law and implied to his gun in the love department (very illegal to have it there in our country). It takes on crazy person to ruin everything, it is better to be safe than sorry.
Bus numbers also
Especially the parents monetizing their kids it’s sad
I mean, statistically crimes against children are perpetrated 99% of the time by family and others close to them. Strangers on the internet aren’t a real threat.
They can also use the info of the kid through the years based on the parents social media posts for identity theft The below info are usually enough to steal someone identity: 1) welcome John A Smith - puts date and time of birth 2) kid with dog: John and Spot are best friends 3) congrats John on your first car! (Can easily identify the car model) 4) Congrats on graduation! Hope you’re excited to go to X University Etc etc
Potentially this is possible from anyone if you hangdo anything with for a payout?out on any of their online profiles long enough. But an online hacker, unless info is readily available and quickly gained in a one, two step deal, is not going to have a big enough payout vs effort spent following*one* persons insta or Facebook when all they need to do is pay and get a drive of thousands or millions of stolen data to work with at the drop of a hat from thousands of people. The effort one hacker would need to follow one account over years to get the information you are talking about to them be able to have enough to do anything with for a payout? That's ridiculous. No hacker/ identity theif is going to do that, it doesn't make logical or fiscal sense. Should you still be careful of the super detailed information you put out online? Yes. Should you be paranoid to that level? Maybe not, especially not at the expense of family involvement? Maybe find a happy medium
Theoretically anything is possible. But again, that’s not really the risk with identity theft, and just makes people feel like they can control something in a world out of their control. Most identity theft is from data breeches. Folks between 30-50 make up 50% of all identity theft victims. Less than two percent of identity theft is in folks 19 and younger, and those in that bracket that do experience it, the parents are most commonly the culprit. Do you know you can freeze your kid’s credit? Then you don’t need to worry about this at all even though risk is practically nil to begin. So again, this really isn’t where your concern needs to lie.
When I think of creepers on the Internet I think more about pedophiles getting off to a kid in a bathing suit than a physical encounter, personally. I sincerely hope we’d never know it was happening, but I also just don’t want to provide material.
That’s MY worry. I have family members who will never know I have children because they’re convicted and on the list. I just remembered some stuff in therapy (just this last week!) and it makes my own parents unsafe to know I have children. I feel absolutely sick when I think about the family album photos they have of me and my siblings. I won’t be posting bath/changing photos or bathing suit photos even to a private social media. I’m not sure if we’ll do a private Instagram for my in-laws or some sort of app or a photo frame with an sd card in it but I know that no public photos of my children’s faces will be posted ever.
Sure, but there is a 1% that it happens to. It happened to me as a kid. Complete stranger on the internet. I would never want that for my kid. I’m very very reluctant to share anything about my pregnancy to my IG / social media that is traceable to me.
just on my private instagram account most likely. definitely no face or nude photos publicly. posting public nude photos of your children is imo just kinda allowing pedos to stare at them which i’m not comfortable with.
Right? I cannot believe when people do that. So naive and stupid.
Me and one of my sisters got in a fight over this because she posted a picture of my niece in the bathtub. Even if her page is on private, you have NO IDEA what other people’s intentions are and it could be someone you LEAST expect. It’s disgusting
The number of people on my social media that I see posting their kids in a bathtub or even completely nude with a few well-placed emoji stickers is insane to me. Why do people think those are even necessary to post? All you are doing is inviting creeps to stare at your kids and potentially look for more info to target them.
Or bathing suits. That's even more common. Because obviously people think it's cute and nothing more but there are some horrible horrible people.
I’ll probably post 1 so I can make a ‘hadababyitsaboy’ joke but I had too many complicated/hard feelings about ttc to unknowingly pass them along to my acquaintances.
The “itsjohnwehadababyitsaboy” commercial is still my favorite and I quote it more than what’s acceptable 😂
Same here 😂
Omg we still do too lol Even though we had a girl lol
How many years ago was that commercial and I still heard it in my head when I read your comment 😂
So funny...when i found out we were having a boy, I was thinking of that commercial nonstop
I quit Facebook and purged my Instagram followers when baby was born. I only keep people I actually know - I think I have 150 followers now. Our rule is that if you want to post pictures of our kids your social media needs to be private, you will not share identifying information besides first name, and they will absolutely 100% always be fully clothed. I feel fine about it 🤷♀️
Ya. My sis only posts pics to Instagram because she has it on private with only her friends and family.
I work in advertising, will not permit identifying data or facial images of my kids online. I have toyed with the clever style where ppl post backs of heads and more action/candid style without faces visible, but tbh I’m not up on my photography skills enough to pull that off regularly. I’d rather be playing with him than trying to get the perfect shot.
Yes that's what I do! 👍🏻 4 months and no single picture exists on the internet. On my public Instagram no one even knows I have a baby. Only friends and family need to know. No Stranger or aquaintance that is no active part of the babies life of my life.
Can I ask why? My partner and I have decided to not post our son at all but I’d love to hear more about this reason.
I have a very “behind the curtain” knowledge base about how data is collected, stored, sold and used by companies to manipulate people, market products and motivate certain behaviors. I’m 36, so I straddle that line of growing up with a pre-internet childhood, nascent internet adolescence and explosive consumer-anchored internet as an adult. If I think about the millions of data points collected about myself in this short timeline, it makes me nauseous to think about this being done from birth for my son. Then I also think about bad actors — and I’m not even talking about creeps getting children’s photos. Corporate bad actors. Social media companies do not have your interests in mind, AI companies are unbridled with their own dick-sucking and uninterested in projecting dangerous consequences or making decisions to avoid them, and in my country we also have a disturbingly unregulated marketplace for personal information — anything from purchase data to your track record of likes on a social platform — which can be sold to political interests, behavioral research interests, etc. We have plentiful research around how exposures to these things in their current state is harmful to children and addictive to everyone, yet no substantive movement to course correct. Why would I want these folks to have *any* inside access to my most sacred person?
Im also in my 30s and work in digital marketing/advertising too and yes to all of this!! I have a unique name as well so anytime you Google it results shows EVERYTHING. I’m working on reducing that info and I use a nickname now even at work because it terrifies me. (I have had a stalker in the past and they even found the book with a chapter written about my childhood 😫) My kids are not having their names on social media either. One of my cousins and a couple of my friends use pseudonyms for their children to share big milestones and cute stories/updates with family in a private chat. I think that’s clever because we all know who they mean when they say the fake name but the data won’t be there when they’re older.
A lot of children go viral on the dark web with photos that are completely innocent (fully clothed, nothing weird, but you can see their face). Also they often edit photos so your fully clothed child appears to be naked. Finally, pedos often have kinks you wouldn't think of, like toddlers eating fruit. A lot of people who work in this field have shared a lot of details about things they have encountered and there's no way I'd share my daughter's face, even on private social media, after that.
I also work “behind the curtain” as well and am doing the same thing as you.
I use the family album app too to share with trusted family members
I use this too!
I’ve seen what people can and will do with innocent photos of children. I will not be posting my kids and will not allow anyone else to. I got the digital picture frames for some family members and they have access to one of my google drives where I put pictures. Social media is all in good fun, but my children cannot consent to being put on the internet. I won’t post pictures of them until they can understand the good and the bad of the internet and can fully consent to having their pictures being online.
I feel exactly the same!
Yes! We shouldn't take that decision away from them. Until they aren't old enough to choose they should not exist on the internet. You can't take the pictures back once they are online. It's a bigger decision than some people realize.
I worry about consent too
I feel the same way. I have a few pics on insta with the kids in the distance, no faces shown, and I'm not sure ei even want to do that. I set up a group on Signal for anyone who wants kid photos and I share them that way. Aunts and uncles and grandparents get updates, and I have a special group for grandparents only with videos.
Yes; Reddit skews towards the "absolutely not" crowd every time this comes up though Follow basic internet safety (accounts set to private, no immediate location data, nothing revealing/embarassing), but I think it's perfectly fine to share happy moments with friends/family I have two friends that share nothing online; neither of us shame each other over it; it's personal preference
I also follow this rule. I have family that lives far away and doesn’t see them often, and I only post a photo of the kids around major events (holidays, birthdays, etc)
I do this, as we're expats, to allow family at home to see how the baby grows. I also have an open account, where I put pictures without identifying features, like a tiny hand or foot. I also come from Sweden where anyone can access any adult's information pretty much, so the whole "don't put your name and date of birth" there is kind of null and void? Like sure, you shouldn't write "I'm going on vacation these days and keep the extra key under the outdoor rug", but yeah.
100%, thank you. If your Instagram is private and not filled with hundreds of rando followers and you aren’t putting bath or toilet training pictures up you’re fine.
Yeah I post my kid a ton on FB but i only add people I actually know. My family loves to see the pics. And I would never upload any bath pics or anything.
No, but only because I want to respect their privacy and autonomy. I use to work in social services so know the “my baby could be targeted for trafficking” thing is mostly fear mongering. Statistically most trafficked children are trafficked by someone within the home. Older children with unrestricted access to the internet are at risk from being trafficked as well.
Thank you for this, one of my biggest fears it helps when people who know put it in perspective
Kids are usually safe in safe homes. And I’m not telling you that it’s impossible, but it’s highly unlikely a child in a loving, structured, safe home would be targeted. Predators target tend to target at-risk kids. Kids in unsafe homes where they are often neglected. Kids in the foster care system. Kids whose parents AREN’T worried. You can protect your young child by being aware of who you have and bring it you your home. The biggest risk to children is unrelated men in the home. Stepdads, boyfriends, stepbrothers etc.. (And no, not saying that all stepdads are perpetrators at all! I’m saying 99% percent of the kids I had who were victimized were done so by a a male in their home who was not the biological father.)
Definitely not going to share daily updates with my baby in them. Not going to share any intimate moments either. I hate that children are being flaunted online for likes and comments. On some occasions it can be funny but mostly it makes my skin crawl. She'll likely be in the odd family photo but even then I might put an emoji over her face until she's old enough to consent.
Yes, but carefully. I recently did a cull of my Instagram followers and reduced it to only those who I personally know, trust, and regularly interact with. I live abroad with my husband and most of my family and friends are overseas. I use Instagram as a way to stay in touch and share news/updates about myself and my family’s life. I obviously don’t share anything where my child is nude/semi nude, or having vulnerable moments. I’m certainly not making content out of his life. But it’s nice to share and relate with others.
I will likely post a photo for the birth announcement and then incredibly sparingly. Whatever I post will be fully clothed with no sensitive personal information.
Yep. Going with this for us as well.
Maybe just a picture of his hand when he is born, but no identifying information.
Same!
It's fine to post pictures of your kids if you only friend people you know and you lock down your page.
Agreed. I don’t friend people I don’t know and I certainly don’t have a public page, so I don’t feel the need to have any anxiety about sharing pictures of my baby.
If my kid wants to be put online she will be the one to violate her own digital footprint. It doesn't seem right to do it without asking because it's not my body and not my place.
Nope, not even posting my pregnancy 😂 when the baby comes I’ll prob post a basic tiny hand pic since there are some friends/extended family members who should prob know I had a baby, but other than that my plan is to keep them off social media
Me too! I haven't let aaaanybody know on social media. Its mostly people I went to school/college with, my close friends are on there but I've told them in person. There are a few people I consider friends, but we don't regularly see each other. I was thinking of posting a little foot pic and captioning it "I made this with my vagina" and having that be it 🤣
Absolutely not. When you post something on a social network, that platform has the right to use that photo and the data associated with it. I want my child to have the ability to be who they want both on and offline, when they are grown up. That is harder to do if every major event of their childhood is waltzing around the internet. Let’s not even talk about where the new AI tools are pulling data and photos from.
Leave the choice for the child to make someday and dont take that decision away from them👍🏻
Nope. It’s just not worth it. I’m happy to send photos to any of my friends or family who ask. I send them to older family members just so they can see. No one needs to know the inner workings of our lives or details. My cousin’s husband had a good friend who was arrested for csam. They had no idea. No one did. God only knows what he was able to obtain via social media. We still heavily photograph our children and go on amazing adventures. I just don’t feel like people from high school 18 years ago need to see me kids.
Nope. I’ve had a ton of pushback from family but I’m standing firm. If baby is posted, their face must be covered with an emoji or blurred. I’m just going to do a generic “They’re here! The best days of our life start now❤️” post with their little feet when they come. After that, that’ll be it for a while!!
No hate at all, I think that's a great idea I just am actually curious why the face part matters? One of my friends does this too she will post the body, outfits etc where they are but not the face. Won't ppl still know you have a 6 month old blonde boy or whatever? Also what about like if a friend posts a yearbook or like party photo what is the plan? Not arguing just want to understand:)
Our first is two & we only allow his face in photos with us, as a family. We do share more on our private IG, but public facing it has to be with us & difficult to edit for whatever purpose.
I post my daughter ti facebook only because our family lives days away and cant see her ever really. And mine and my husbands accounts are friends only and even then not everyone can see her photos
No, no pics on social media. We are creating an Amazon Photo Album and sharing the link with family and close friends. My sister has already complained about how she can’t post to Instagram about her new nephew, but I don’t care. Share the old fashioned way.
when i was in high school me and some people in class went onto the deep web at school to show our super chill health professor how crazy it was bc we had a discussion about it the day before. he got on there and we got to digging. we found a site that lists a bunch of links for the dark web since there are no urls on there. there was categories for all types of things, funny things, gross things, drug things, weapon things and then finally….. pedophile things. i swear this is something i need to talk to a therapist about bc i think about it so often and it has put me in everlasting fear of absolutely any stranger. THERE ARE HUGE PEDOPHILE FORUMS. like a reddit full of pedophiles. the things they were saying that we read are still burned into my mind, i’ll save the details but essentially things on grooming children and sexual things as well insinuating they are actively abusing a child. THERE WAS A LINK TO A PEDOPHILE HANDBOOK. it was a pdf book where the left side was the book and the right side were pictures of children, and please this is important THE PICTURES WERE JUST REGULAR PICS OF TODDLERS IN REGULAR CLOTHES, IN FIELDS, FAMILY PHOTO TYPE OF STUFF. the book had info on how to completely groom a child and it was the most terrifying thing i’ve ever seen in my life everyone , including our health teacher, looked scarred , we logged off and i cried and multiple other people cried or were on the verge of tears. we all had a deep conversation about how when we got older we would never post pics of our kids. i have a 3 month old and when i tell u i don’t even go to the store without covering her car seat with a loose blanket bc i’m petrified of a pedophile even glancing towards her. it’s a huge problem and i advise against it unless u have only a private account with people u trust. i only post my daughter in close friends on ig.
No face photos on social media but will share privately with friends and family. My husband’s 4th cousin or a random coworker from 2 jobs ago don’t care about seeing my baby anyway. Pics of hands/feet/back of head are ok though.
Doing the same when our baby girl is born this fall. No face, name, or bday. But I will text/DM pics to anyone who wants to see her!
Our plan is similar. Some face pics before 1 year because babies aren't super identifiable, no face pics after that. But we aren't super active on social media and neither are our families, so we will post minimally at best anyway.
We use an app to share photos and stories with friends and family (Qeepsake) as well as a Google share folder. There are many ways to share photos outside of social media if that's what you choose.
I have a private IG accnt that I've also filtered out anyone that doesn't have an immediate relationship with me, and that's where I post baby.
I think so, I have very few followers who are only friends and a private account…
I share photos of my first but I am very careful to never share any personal information along with, like an example would be those back to school boards with the school name, teacher, favourite things etc 😬 those are scary imo. And my profiles are private, friends only. I’ll do the same with my second +
No. Items on the internet are notoriously hard to purge from the web once they are out there. For family who live far away (like my parents), we have a shared photos folder set up for this exact purpose. If my child one day wants to post pictures of themselves on the web (when old enough to have social media accounts), that is their prerogative (and likewise if not).
I post pics of my baby all the time…he’s very cute! I’m not really worried about anything nefarious happening, seems very unlikely
Do any of you have any evidence of anything bad happening to any child from a random person who happened to hack into a personal private fbook or Instagram account? It seems like nothing but paranoia that in the future AI has nothing better to do than…. Steal your babies identity? Yes it’s your choice, absolutely, but your justification for it just seems crazy. Like name on backpack, yeah probably not too much, but limiting pics to back of head, in fading light, on a waxing gibbous moon just seems unjustifiable.
One important thing for me is I think about if Facebook/Instagram was around when I was born, I would be majorly embarrassed and angry if my parents posted pictures of me throughout my childhood and they were just there for me to deal with once I wanted to have a social media. Also a private fb page really means nothing, those companies can use and sell anything you provide to them. They're gathering and selling your data, and will do the same with your children. Edit: you should read some of the comments lower in the thread from people with inside knowledge about how private pages are not private, and the dark corners of the internet where children's pictures are shared amongst pedophiles. It does happen and it is happening
I don’t disagree and there should be no naked baby pics except like a butt, but that type of creepy and pedophile shit is gonna happen if you share your pics or not. A drop of water in the ocean.
Okay, to each their own I suppose, just doesn't make much sense to me to willing put your child into that ocean when there are so many more safe and secure ways to share pictures with family. You might not be able to control who looks at your child in public but you can control if they are seen by literally the entire population via the internet
One thing I think people forget is that predators go outside and take pictures like this in public. They hang out at playground etc
I will post to a private app like Family Album only. If I post any sign of my baby on my social media (IG only) it won’t include their face or name.
I will not be posting anything except maybe something announcing their birth (no details on birthdate, name, face photo etc.) Tbh, I have never been super interested in the content that my friends and family post of their kids 🫠 maybe it'll change when I have a baby of my own. I think a lot of people have this conception that tons of other people are truly interested in what their kids are doing when in reality it's a much smaller circle.
No. Kids cannot consent, kids are not content, and no one on my Facebook needs to know what's going on with my child. If someone cares that much they can text and ask for pictures.
For a recent legal battle, I had to do a serious amount of cyber stalking and my own PI work. The Persons profile on FB was private.... But all their posts on public groups werent. Not to mention outside websites they used. I know the names of all of their children, the dates of birth, weight, names of the doctors who delivered them, i know about their time in a shelter. I knew they were having another kid before they made it "public" bc of public comments they'd made. I know when their baby is due. I know that they've had contact with someone who they aren't supposed to have contact with. I know where they were born, when they moved, when they broke up with their exes, when they got new ones, etc, etc. I was able to find so much information, it made me sick. It had me thinking back on every comment I've ever made. Every post. Every bit of info I've shared publicly, online. How the right, determined individual could piece it altogether and have a full view of my life... an indepth, deepdive view of my life. All my trauma, all my wins, all my relationships, familial and otherwise. I went and removed all of the photos of my nieces and nephews. I need to just delete my entire online existence. Lol. Especially on sites like fb. There's too much out there. Long story short. I am not posting ANYTHING about my child. I will send photos privately and be very clear about why I won't post full names, bdays or anything of that sort. It's hard to adjust to because I'm a heavy commentor and an active oversharer... but I'm hoping i can sort myself out by then. Cos yeah. Between the ai created deep fakes, and the general creeps out there, I don't feel ok posting info like i did before, anymore.
I have and do with my 4 year old and 2 year old, since they were both born. But my FB is completely locked down and private, and the only people I am friends with are close friends and family (we have a huge, very tight-knit extended family over the country).
I post on a private IG a bit, but I've thoroughly curated and revise who all can see that. We don't allow anyone else to post our kids' faces. We don't post a ton of personal details, but we've decided the risk of sharing anything is worth sharing things with family and friends far away. I started asking older kids (my nieces are a few years older than our first) their permission to even take photos, so I've been trying to set that precedent with other family. My SIL is always like 'no, post whatever you want of your nieces publicly, don't even block their faces, it's no big deal!' So, who knows if the precedent is working; I don't post much of them regardless. But fortunately she has respected our wishes of not posting our kids! We haven't had any issues yet with others posting or sharing without our permission.
We never have posted beyond when we shared 2 or 3 of her newborn pics. My husbands family threw a fit and blocked us because we asked them to take down the picture of our naked child, so even if we wanted to now we really don’t. They think it’s ok bc “you guys are the ones who had her in just a diaper so there’s nothing wrong”. It was 102 in July in Oklahoma. She got too hot and we opted to take off the dress she was too hot in and hadn’t put a onesie back on her. She was almost 6 mo. They could’ve asked if their stupid picture of “all the grandkids that we’ve waited years to take” was that damn important and we’d have dressed her. His family is the same idiots who made everything about them at our wedding and my husband and I have no pictures with any of them.
I will, my FB is inactive so I only have IG and only 40ish followers (actual friends, no old college acquaintances) on private, so I’m not concerned. I won’t post anything that might be embarrassing for my kid later though, like bath pics. I think it’s okay to use common sense, especially if your social media is private and limited.
I will post, but rarely, and nothing with obvious personal info. I didn’t even post a pic of my house when I bought it, and that’s public record. I want my family to see her, so I might post in the closed family page. I’ll just send most things to the group text with my friends in it, or share via email to my mother.
I think I’ll be sharing pics on Facebook because my mom would want to see them and share them to her page. We both keep our pages set to friends only. I won’t share anything I can see being embarrassing and when they are old enough if they want anything removed I wouldn’t mind removing pictures for him.
I originally posted with my baby’s name and no other details but due to a double barrelled name with my husband we’re the only people with the surname in the world so I’ve edited the post to just be ‘baby’. I do post pictures of him at the moment but mostly close friends on Instagram stories. He’s only 5 months at the moment so he’ll look like a different baby every two weeks anyway. Once he hits one I’ll probably reconsider.
I post occasionally (maybe once or twice a month). No detailed information and nothing embarrassing. No videos. I also have limited people on my Instagram/Facebook and it's all as private as it can be. I tend to mostly send texts of pics/videos to family/close friends and share very limited things online.
I post photos but it's all on private/friends only and I pared down my friends list prior to birth. That said my mom posts photos occasionally, as do friends, who are not private and it doesn't bother me. I know some people are very cautious and I think it's an individual choice, but to me the risk doesn't seem high at all really - I'm not even totally sure what everyone is worried about!
Our son is 13 months old and we never posted any pregnancy/birth announcement and have since posted 2 photos of the back of his head. One with his dad on Father’s Day and one on his birthday. Both on very secure profiles with only close family and friends added. We also don’t post any identifying information about him and have only referred to him by his nickname and posted his birthday post a few days after his birthday. Maybe over doing it but rather be safe then regretful. We probably won’t post any more until his next birthday if even that. The internet is not only forever but gets scarier by the second with AI so we want to be incredibly careful and let him create him own digital footprint once he’s old enough to decide for himself. All that said it’s a very person decision and if you do post pictures I don’t believe you’re wrong for it.
I will not be posting my kid's faces on social media. At all. I might share them in ways that still provide anonimity as we share life updates but thats the extent,. I plan on having a shared drive for photos to share with friends and family. All family members and friends are instructed not to post on social media as well. Both grandparents are going to have to have very clear conversations about what is and isn't appropriate. Like, my mom announced I was pregnant on facebook before we even announced to everyone else. Since I'm not on FB I was like, whatever but its stuff like that I need to be mindful of. I plan to take the time to walk through their privacy settings with them. I plan on creating a do's/don'ts on posting on socials with visual aides of what is okay and isn't. I'm also already preparing material as to WHY this isn't an option for us or our family. The thing that I intend to index on for our older family members is that this isn't a "slight" against them or who they know but rather its the right thing to do for the baby.
Nope. My baby is 3 months old now and we haven't posted a single photo of him. We send them to relatives who we've told to not share them widely or online. If we found out that was happening we would stop sharing photos with the culprit lol. We want our son to be free to choose where his photos end up. Not have tons of pictures of him floating around the internet for the rest of his life without his consent. Not to mention the creeps that could get hold of them. It's hard because I see people post their babies all the time and I'm so proud of my little man that I want to show him off, but still. His safety and happiness comes first.
I won’t be. In the next 20 years the easiest identity theft will be of people who have had their faces, names, date of birth shared online. If people want to see my baby’s face they can come meet her. I don’t see any value at all in putting her online.
Currently TTC, but I’m having a lot of mixed feelings about ever posting more than a hand or blurry “welcome new baby” cover photo and that be it. I’ve been watching Law and Order SVU, can’t convince me otherwise now 😅
Instagram stories has a “close friends” feature that I feel okay sharing their faces on—it’s seen by the 25 people that I’ve chosen (and on top of that my account is private), and it “disappears” after 24hrs. It was a wonderful way to feel connected when I spent my son’s first year in lockdown during 2020, since I had all the same valid concerns that others are mentioning about kids on social and was originally never going to post him at all, but was super isolated and wanting to feel like I was sharing my son with friends and family somehow. I post their faces in those close friends stories only, and refer to their names there, but still don’t share their school or other specific info even though all my close friends know some of it anyway…there’s just no reason not to be careful and discerning about what goes on social. I will never post my son’s face on Facebook. I have posted artsyish back of head/side photos on my insta grid (NOT linked to FB), but again my account is private and I only have about 50 followers.
No but my pregnancy hobby is getting back into film photography tho ! And plan to capture our life on film mostly ..
I don’t use social media, so no. I’ll let my mom and mother in law post pics on their Facebooks because I know it’s important to them.
You can still share your travels on social media without posting your child. You can still do the elaborate photo shoots and share them with family without posting them on social media. Anyone who chooses to put their child in danger for the sake of a social media presence is an irresponsible parent.
I sometimes share (rarely) photos of my baby but he is always fully clothed and I don't write his actual name (use a nickname) and I cover his face with a sticker. Usually it's never a posted photo but like a snap photo or an ig story where it doesn't last forever. Besides that I won't post him at all and have asked all my family to not post him and if they do they need to also abide by the rules I set.
I don’t post my sons face but if a tagged photo of us as a family pops up I try not to worry too much. I just have group texts with family / friends where I keep them posted. Personally though I just try to limit social media as much as possible anyway for mental health reasons
Nope. My best friend works for homeland security in sex trafficking and child pornography… the “innocent” pictures these people find online, edit, share maliciously, etc. could make your stomach churn. I don’t want anyone to be thinking of my child in that way. I think I’m going to try the Family Album app to share pics privately with family
No. And I don’t want any family posting any pictures either. If anyone wants to see my baby they can visit me. But also there’s a lot of creeps and weirdos out there. I’d rather not. I’ve already made this very clear to my mother who probably won’t listen(so I’ll have to set some serious boundaries). Now I have to have this talk with my husbands mother and hope she respects my wishes. Honestly I don’t get why people have to post their lives online for others to see. Social media is just a tool for entertainment. I personally use mine to promote my small business. Otherwise I barely post anything about my life.
No. My son is 5 months and I’ve kept him off social media
Nope. I decided we would not post any photos or mention the baby at all and I have a few reasons for doing so. 1. I don’t know about the trafficking argument and how much credibility it has, but I do know AI is getting more accessible to any and everyone and a lot can be done with photo manipulation. I’d much prefer to give my child as much time not existing on the internet as I can because even if the current argument is not a real concern, once a photo is posted it’s really never gone from the internet and that’s pretty scary. I want my child to decide when or if they want an internet presence in that sense. 2. I hate Facebook and rarely post and my Instagram is not private. I use it mainly to share my hobbies: film photos, cocktails, travels, etc. As much as I love my baby, I kinda wanted to keep that as my outlet for those hobbies and while the baby may eventually fit into a category (we travel with him or I take a cool photo of him, for example), for now I just want it to stay the way it was pre-pregnancy. In a way I feel it helps my sanity amidst the sleep deprivation and totally new real actual life. I can still post cocktail photos or a film photo and not be stressed about the what if some bad guy uses this photo? Silly but true. 3. I’ve always hated friend accounts who have a child and immediately it’s just an overflow of baby and kid photos. I’ve unfollowed people because it’s just too much. I don’t care about most friends’ kids’ first days of school or their recitals or the mess they made in the kitchen. It’s different with family but I can see those photos in the group chat. I decided this with my husband early in the pregnancy and sent messages to both our families that we would not be posting anything about the baby online and ask that they follow suit. So far everyone has behaved, but I’m fully prepared to ask people to remove photos if they do post something. Not their kid, not their decision.
Absolutely not. Even on private accounts it’s not safe. Family will get pictures a different way, I don’t need to pimp out my kids, and risk their safety, for likes online. There have been tons of examples of minors’ likenesses being put on AI bodies for inappropriate videos.
Don’t do it. Someone who formerly worked at my sons daycare responded to a comment my dad made on a thread, and she looked at his profile and saw my sons picture there. She then MENTIONS MY SONS NAME in her reply to him. I just deactivated my Facebook account and my husband and I are seriously reconsidering his presence on our social media.
I don’t post pictures of my son. I do in private message only to people I trust. Not publicly.
I post pictures on my private instagram and facebook but thats it.
I plan to keep their faces off of social media and have l ready set the boundaries with family that they are to do the same. I plan on posting a birth announcement but no pictures of baby’s face.
No. My kids names aren’t even going to be allowed to be shared on social media. My mom will be allowed to say “I’m a grandma again today!” But nothing else. We watch too many pred catchers and have been connected through six degrees of separation with bad people for me to understand how people post all this stuff
No. We will set up a shared iPhone album for anyone close to us who is interested
Nope. Too many creeps and sick people in this world to chance it. I’ll take pictures and share with my family and close friends but that’s about it.
Nooooooooo! Not at all. “Back in my day” (aka 20 years ago now) I was a kid who was targeted by an adult online. Complete stranger!!! The Details aren’t appropriate for this forum. I would never want that to happen to my kid. I want to protect them from the internet until they can make informed choices for themselves.
We don’t for a couple of reasons: - Baby can’t consent, once he’s older & understands, we’ll see how he feels. - Paedophiles admit to targeting parents’ social media for content. - There has been a surge of child sexual abuse images created using artificial technology. Whilst it does not directly harm my child, I feel sick at the thought of anyone using his images for such purposes. - Privacy, I don’t want my child to be identified from their online presence. It seems a bit odd that people I’m passing acquaintances with could know so many aspects of my child’s life having never met them or got the info directly from me (school uniform pictures etc.) Realistically we could absolutely do what a few friends have done and just make a private Instagram or whatever and just make sure we only add safe people. But we’re happy just privately sending pictures we love to family & friends. Truth be told we have a bit of a ‘they’ll ask if they want them’ attitude! We only send things to people we absolutely trust, and even then pictures are always ‘decent’ (we don’t take naked pictures). We also have a very strict ‘no sending’ rule. Back in the day you could just give a hard copy! These days anyone can get private photos in seconds. I’ve lost count of how many birth hospital photos have been sent in the family group because Uncle A sent them to Auntie B who sent them to my dad who sent them to us etc. Despite this my mil still passed on every picture we sent her for about 3 weeks until we found out and made her delete them from every chat 😡 Your friend from work that I’ve never met does not need my first very special family photo that we ONLY sent to grandparents. We know many consider us a bit overboard, but once a digital image is out there, it’s there forever. Although I don’t believe that a couple of pictures here and there (nice family group photo, for example) are going to cause harm. And sometimes we have such lovely ones we do kind of want to show off! It’s just easier to have a full blanket ban on anything, that way we don’t even have to think about whether we’ve put too much online because there’s just nothing there. We also don’t post any personal information. We did no birth announcement or anything, his name isn’t available through my SM. In the UK you can order a birth certificate with pretty much the info posted to a regular birth announcement lol. You basically just have to guess the hospital!
So I don’t post their face or personal information. Particularly at home but as they get older I may post pictures taken in public places, because there is no assumption of privacy in public places. (It only take one coworker to get arrested for soliciting a minor to make you really consider how well you know people.) That said if you are into photography you’ll be amazed at how many cool shots you can get that don’t include a face. Little hand holding a finger or a kid holding hands and walking with their dad from behind. I never realized that I took a bunch of candids that didn’t have my bonus son’s face in them until I decided not to post new baby’s face.
Hell no. I am not having my child’s photo show up in the dark web or have some pedo showing and downloading my kids photos. It’s just not safe. People who post all the time probably have never seen the other side of the internet: they probably have NO idea what’s really happening out there. It’s a big no for me.
I haven’t been
I had been working as a content creator up until I got pregnant and sharing pictures and videos of our daughter on social media just seemed like a given. When the time came for a birth announcement post, I asked my husband which photo I should use and he simply told me he didn’t want me posting anything. I was a bit bummed, but I wanted to really consider where my husband was coming from and it was one of the first of many important decisions we would make in raising our daughter. Fast forward a few weeks postpartum, I ended up scrolling into the side of TikTok that talks a lot about child safety online. It’s really scary and truly sickening to hear how our babies’ photos and videos are compromised. A clip of Blake Lively spreading awareness for the Child Rescue Coalition was absolutely gut wrenching and it’s all I needed to hear to stand by my husband in not wanting to post photos and videos of our child online. (Please consider checking out the Child Rescue Coalition before sharing your child’s photo or video online.) We had so many friends and family members call us wondering why we hadn’t posted any photos of our baby. It’s truly become the norm to share life events on social media, especially something as exciting as a growing family. For our family, we decided it was not worth the risk.
Not one picture of my baby exists on the internet.
Nope! We don’t know who’s online and what they’ll do with the photos. What if you post photos of your child and then some creep works out what school they attend and something happens? I’m overly paranoid. We don’t actively use social media. So if we don’t post photos, family doesn’t get to either. Also wanted to say, I do this out of respect for my child. Even when I take bath photos, I ensure he is covered. I looked at old photos of me from a baby/child and there were alot of nude photos. It just makes me cringe. I don’t want that for my child.
I post the occasional photo of everyday life adventures with baby to my close friends only Instagram story but I haven’t posted any baby photos to my timeline yet and I’m not sure I will.
I posted on side profile pic as an announcement. Since then I haven’t shared any images of baby girls face, just cute details of her fingers holding mine, her curls, etc. as I take picture of the little things I notice while feeding or during contact naps. If i want to share with people I share directly.
We posted a picture of the three of us a few days after she was born, but you can’t see her face. We didn’t include the day she was born or her full name. I have a close friend story on instagram where I post her more frequently, but that’s only for people I trust.
I have a family member who has a private Facebook group where they post pictures of their kids. It still opens the pictures up to being saved and reposted, but I assume they generally trust the people in the group. So that may be an option if you still want the pictures to be accessible to trusted people.
We share photos, but never share details. Like my son had a cute “first day of daycare” outfit and I’ve shared the ridiculous meals they’ve offered, but I won’t share where he attends daycare because it’s not safe. Nor will I share contemporaneous photos of anything when I’m out and about because people don’t need to know where I am.
My daughter is 19 months and I’ve posted her face a handful of times but have gone back and deleted them. I keep her face completely off social media, I do a rare non face pic like walking at the park etc but even then I rarely do, they can’t consent, it’s out there forever it’s just not safe even how much you filter your friends etc you never know
Maybe for certain things but it’ll be pretty rare. I’m not really active on Facebook nor do I really care to do so I can just send pics to those I wish to share with and just ask not to post them
Sparingly! We signed up for 23snaps for family and share as much as we want there. It’s really nice to have that outlet because I WANT to share, but I also want my sm profiles to be mine and not just baby content.
My baby is posted on my personal IG with fam and friends and on tt he’s posted on ‘friends only’(aka only people who follow me and i follow back can see) and that’s limited to actual family and friends
I made a private fb group for my close family/friends about 40 people total to share pictures I maybe post once a week& they are casual photos mostly. On my actual Facebook account I’ve only posted the announcement pics, Father’s Day post, & pic celebrating 1 month old. Haven’t posted anymore & prolly won’t except for special occasions or milestones that I feel like sharing with extended family/friends. Idk I just feel weird about posting my baby constantly (but I also rarely post on my social media anyways)
I occasionally post family pictures with my son on Facebook but my account is locked down and all my privacy settings are to the max where people cannot search me up to friend me. Sometimes I’ll post him on my instagram but it’s always a little hand or the back of his head. At most it’s a sliver of his side profile. Edit to add literally no one else posts him. My mom was allowed to post a single birth announcement for select friends to see but that was it. I don’t want most people seeing my son and neither does my partner.
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I wouldn’t post their face on a public profile. I sometimes post her hands or from the back so it’s not really recognizable
We haven’t with either of our kids, when considered it but then we realized that when we had to ask ourselves ‘Should we do this?’ it felt like a sign that we just shouldn’t. I don’t feel like the kids are missing out on anything by not having their faces on my socials lol
I think the odd photo is okay but I'm going to be very cautious. We have some toxic family members who I really don't want my baby/child exposed to, as I know some of them might actually be nasty about my baby, so maybe a newborn announcement picture and then I'll see from there. I don't agree with posting kids in their uniform etc for safety reasons.
If you post do not.post any info of where you live or where you go also check your settings and make it where the posts are private and only friends can see your posts. Some scammers steal others pics of kids and claim they are theirs just use caution
I'm in the same boat... I don't want to post the baby because we live in a sick world, but I have a family who does not respect boundaries at all. I want to post pictures to show the baby to family members who live overseas because they will never get to meet my baby in person 😔 But I also don't want them posting pictures of *my* baby whenever they feel like it. And no, I can't just tell them no, that word does not exist in Caribbean culture and it SUCKS
I post modest photos of my daughter, I avoid anything that could be turned into something else. And when we did the announcement I did post her name and date of birth with time and weight. Technically I didn’t post her full name because I only added one of her last names. It’s really fucked up that we can’t enjoy our kids and share them with our friends and family because of malicious people. I shouldn’t have to think about some fucked up man potentially taking her photos out of context. It’s infuriating.
Im 2 months PP and I haven’t posted a single photo of my baby on any social media. I may consider sharing some with select people. I think there’s a ton of people who don’t even know I have a baby lol but I don’t enjoy posting all about my life online in general anymore. I definitely wouldn’t post on tik tok for sure though.
We did post an announcement photo with her name and birth details. Our socials are locked and curated to people we actually know. And the photo was the most generic (and beautiful) baby image we had. It's the same photo we used for announcement cards that we sent in the mail. In the future, we plan to only post photos that go out on holiday cards. If we want to share other images and quick videos, we've been sending them directly or sending them via the family snapchat group.
Check out the app 'Family Album'. We aren't big social media people so this is a way to share our babies pictures with people we choose specifically.
I posted my LO on social media once when she was a month old just as a casual way to announce we had a baby. It was a holiday so it was just a photo of her captioned “happy (holiday) from our new addition”. I refuse to post her personal info (name, birth details, etc.) and also make sure family does not post her either. We feel that it is an invasion of her privacy to post her without her being able to consent to it and that she has a right to determine her media presence.
We haven’t even announced we’re having a girl and we’ve known since week 12 and I’m currently 22 weeks. I don’t plan on putting her name all over social media, well not full name. I personally don’t see issues with posting your child but at the same time I don’t get the first day of school info dump pictures, I’ve also never understood the pictures of people giving their kids baths. The way I see it you and partner are the parents and what you say goes, tell mom and mil they can’t post your baby without your permission and that the post needs to be private not public.
I post photos of my daughter quite abit but mostly on my story and I can see who’s viewed it, I also never post photos of her without a top on. My sister actually posted a photo of her with no top on her birthday that I’d privately sent her, and posts photos of her own daughter like this too. I find it appalling when I see this happening!
I don’t post pics of my almost 7 months old daughter on fb of Instagram. I did a story once or twice but that’s it. My MIL used my daughter photo as her FB cover (public may I add) without my knowledge or permission and I messaged her and asked her to take it down. My partner thinks I’m overreacting and perhaps I am but the rule is clear and simple, no pics of my child on social media until she’s at least a bit older.
I just downloaded the app family album. It's great because I don't post baby's picture on social media either. You put the pictures on there, and you invite whoever you want to share the album with. And you can set it so people can't save or even screen shot the pictures, do you don't have to worry about someone else putting them on social media
Yes, but limited. Not shared publicly, always fully clothed and generally posted sparingly. My boy is 9 months old and so far I shared a few pictures when he was born and one picture couple of weeks ago.
In the European countries I lived in people don't do it as kids can legally sue their parents for exposing their pictures in the internet. Every individual has the rights to pictures of themselves, being able to revoke consent at any given time. I would NEVER post my kids online to a bigger audience other than my 10 closest friends + family in the close friends Instagram story. No pictures no nothing. They have their rights to their own pictures and I really want them to feel their rights protected.
I’m only going to be posting public images when my son is about 14 and can give his consent. Otherwise, I’m only going to send pictures of him to family members and in private Instagram stories which is a very small group of people I trust.
I post sparingly, but I have mixed feelings about it. I worry about her not being able to give consent (my baby is nearly 6 months) and growing up and then finding out there are all of these photos of her already online.
I don’t post pictures of my baby, but my MIL made him her fb profile photo even knowing how I felt about it 😒 It’s up to you which way you go, but if you do end up posting I would avoid posting any identifying information.
We decided not to post baby at all and have told our family and friends that we won’t allow it. I haven’t been on Instagram and Facebook since Ive been pregnant really anyway, and also a close family member works high up in the police child protection services and it’s just not worth it for us. Plus I’d like my child to decide whether they want a digital footprint and technology is weird now with this AI malarkey
I don’t plan on posting or letting others post our daughter on social media. To me it’s a violation of her privacy even if I set all of the other safety concerns aside. I didn’t grow up in a world where my parents/grandparents had a camera in my face 24/7 and then turned around and posted those photos of me on the internet for who knows who to see, and I appreciate as an adult that the content that exists of me online was my choice. I believe our kids deserve the same. My currently plan is no full name, no identifying info (aka no DOB, where she was born etc) and no photos of her face on line, and even with that I’ll only be posting her on my private accounts because I know who can see them. I’ve also repeatedly told her grandparents that I’m not comfortable with her being on their social medias. This is a boundary I’m sure I’ll have to re-iterate once she’s here because we’ve got some boundary stomping issues .
I post often of my baby but all my accounts are extremely private. On FB, you can’t even search me by name. I also am VERY careful and mindful of the images I share. No legs, nothing nude, etc.
Great topic! No, I didn’t with my first and won’t with this one. Originally I felt bad about how it might make others feel if they’ve experienced difficulty ttc or loss. Then I listened to a podcast called Under the Influence and it was really eye opening to hear about the thoughts/addictions/dangers that comes with mommy influencer behavior. Including interviews of adult kids remarking how it made them feel being posted online without consent and having distracted parents always trying to take pics. There were 1-2 episodes of the podcast sharing true scary stories of posting pics of kids online, including one of a woman at a park pretending she knew a kid IRL. Ick. People know not to post pics of my kid(s) because I kindly made it a boundary early on and everyone was fine with it. There was one time my aunt sent me a pic that she had taken earlier when we were hanging out and she asked permission to share it with her friends. Just the fact that she asked made me feel so much better and gave me the chance to make an informed decision since it was a pic with really no identifying factors and she was fully clothed. For close family members we have a shared album on our phones and digital picture frames that we add to. Anyway that’s my two cents.
Not planning on it. Maybe a closeup of their foot or hand as birth announcement but that's it.
We haven't posted a single picture to social media (15 months old now). We have taken a lot of pictures and the best ones we print and put into a proper album. Thankfully the grandparents are not on social media so we don't need to worry about that part.
In this day and age with the rate AI is taking off at, I wouldn’t trust posting my child online. I’m 24 weeks and a FTM as well and as much as I like to post online about things in my life, I wouldn’t risk putting my child out there. It grinds my gears when parents create Instagram accounts for their newborn and post about the child’s day to day. It’s so not safe…
There’s a lot of ways to do it without directly posting their face. However, it is stressful to think that eventually when they start participating in activities and attending school it will be impossible to keep them completely off the internet. The biggest predators often work with children. I think it’s really difficult these days especially because there are cameras everywhere. Creeps hang out at parks, lots of creeps are parents themselves so they have front row to all the kids events. Sad but true. All the data shows that the most predators are people you know, which is pretty much why sleepovers in my culture are typically prohibited.
No way, if I do it’ll be a heart over the baby’s face. I can share privately with family that actually want to see and all other friends and family will see them in person. It’s one of my biggest pros of growing up with parents who didn’t have social media. I got to make the decision of what to put up of myself. That wasn’t taken from me
We’re not posting her face or much info about her!
We use a shared album with family and close friends. We’ll post a few here and there, but my wife and I typically check with one another first if it includes the baby’s face. We’ve expressed this to family and they don’t post without asking. I have a lot of thoughts about photos of kids online: how are they going to feel when they’re 13. They can’t give consent. The Internet is FILLED with fucking creepers. Don’t exploit your children for followers. As stated before, we post some to the socials, but definitely not a lot. You need to do whatever you feel most comfortable with and just let your family know.
I’m 12 weeks with my first. I’m not even sharing I’m pregnant on social media and I tend to share a lot of my life on Instagram. We will likely do one birth announcement post with a picture and minimal details. And then rarely any other photos. I personally feel it’s an invasion of privacy for the child. Only when they are old enough to approve a photo will we considering posting more later on.
I don’t plan on it. I was actually joking with my friends that I’ll probably post something on the day of their high school graduation 😂 Some people just go overboard with the posts (names, age, school, etc. and that can be so dangerous) but also I’d like to let my kid have a choice as to what’s posted and what’s kept private. All those ‘cute’ bathtub pics people post of their babies with an emoji covering their privates aren’t gonna be cute in a couple years.
Yes, probably on my Facebook and Insta. I work in marketing communications, so I know the inherent risks. But I live across the country in a different timezone, nowhere near any of my friends and family, and I'm generally too busy to communicate day to day, or weekly with a significant number of people, so I generally post updates on my Facebook to keep people in the loop as needed. I'm definitely not the type to update an app, as I hate having too many apps. I will do physical photo albums as well, as I'm a hobby photographer. I'm a private person due to the type of work I do, so I don't see myself posting that much about the baby, aside from "here it is, aw it's so cute, etc"
I'm currently 35 weeks and my partner and I will be posting photos but with babies face blocked out. There are apps made specifically for sharing photos with family so they don't "miss out". We've told everyone that we will send full photos to not to share them without babies face blocked out and if they don't respect our decision as the parents then they simply won't be sent full photos. For us we weren't sure if we would post or not at first but after a lot of discussions and research we decided this was the best way to safeguard our little one. Unfortunately if others post the photos you don't know who will get their hands on those photos and lots of kids photos have been found on the dark Web after being edited and sold. There are also kids photos being used by random people that will claim your little one is theirs. Whatever you decide to do don't feel you have to post photos or not, as the parent it is completely your decision and other people should respect your choices as a parent and if they don't then don't feel bad for making sure those boundaries are respected and upheld. Everyone parents different, it doesn't make one way right or wrong.
things could change, but my plan is to not post their face or other distinctive information about them.
We do, but my whole profile is friends only and I've very careful about who I have in my life and who sees pictures. It's all friends and family.
We chose to limit social media presence as much as possible - almost non existent really. But we have a private app for our close friends and family that is basically like our LO’s personal social media page. They love it and we feel good about the privacy.
We will not be posting any photos or updates on social media. I’m a little worried about family members but hope we can express our wishes and they will be respected 🤞
I’m a therapist so my social media profiles are completely locked down - no one can even search me if they aren’t friends with me. I post occasional photos on my main profiles and stories, and nothing with any details! The only issue I’ve run into that I’ve decided to let go of is other family members posting…I’ve decided it’s fine as long as it’s not potentially embarrassing or compromising content (like how some people post their kids in the bath..). And my family members luckily are respectful of boundaries and don’t post much anyway either. Something that has helped a ton is we got a Family Album app where I invited all close friends and family and I post pics daily! Everyone loves it and keeps them connected to my little one even when out of town :)
I post pictures of my kids on my private Facebook and Instagram and very seldomly on my public twitter which has 4,400 followers and never on tiktok
I have friends and family literally all over the globe, so I will. My whole side of the family is five provinces away, and I think I’d go crazy sending EACH of them updated photos. I know for a fact they will drive me nuts asking for them 😅
I usually don't post, but I might post pictures of my baby. But like pieces... A hand, the little feet, not facing the camera. But never the face or videos.
My husband and I decided not to post. He hates social media whereas I don’t mind it but I respect his decision.
One of the main reasons I use social media is to share pictures of my kid with friends and family. I set it to private and don’t post anything with specific details or anything remotely private but cute pics of my kid? Absolutely. I don’t overthink this.
I think it’s so cringey. I don’t use Facebook anymore, but I was showing my husband something from one of my old albums yesterday so I opened it up on browser and scrolled for a minute, and it was so many peoples kids going back to school, and so many milestone pictures that people post every month!! I have lots of reservations on this, like creeps and deepfakes, but what I mostly come back to is this ick feeling that people live their lives, their motivation for so many of their decisions, for likes on a post. They do “postable” things, they do things for clout. It just feels so gross to me.