Though at this point it's a ubiquitous part of everyone's life, we decided pretty early in my pregnancy that when the time came we wouldn't be posting pictures of our daughter on Facebook. My husband and I have both had profiles since our college years, so we have the typical love/hate relationship with Facebook and the influence it has on our lives.
This has been surprisingly one of the HARDEST decision we've made, especially when we see all of the other cute babies our family and friends are proudly showing off. Our baby is the cutest baby in the UNIVERSE!! It would be really easy for us to cave and I'm surprised we haven't fallen off the wagon yet. However we've also been saved from some headaches we've seen other parents have to deal with.
If you're an avid Facebook user it may not even be a question as to whether you're going to post pictures of your children, but like anything you decide to do as a parent I think it's worth taking a look at some potential repercussions. DISCLAIMER: You are not a terrible parent for posting pics of your kid on facebook.I'm just sharing some of the reasons why we decided not to do so in the hopes of creating some discussion.
1) Your Child's Privacy
60 Minutes recently did a story on how developers are able to use Facebook's database of faces (all those tagged pictures) to create facial recognition software advertisers can use to target consumers. This may sound a little conspiracy nutty but it seems to me that its only a short jump to Big Brother being able to follow us around a la Minority Report. The technology already exists, it's just a matter of who's using it. We're hoping to keep our daughter off the grid until she's old enough to make her own decisions about her identity and whether or not she wants a web presence.
2) Everyone Else's Sanity
Lets face it, there are people out there who overdo the baby on facebook thing. You know the ones: their photo albums are time lapses of their kid's first year. Considering we have over a thousand pictures of our daughter from her first month between us thanks to our iphones, I'm sure most of our friends would tire pretty quickly from the cuteness overload. And they would overload. Very quickly. She's really cute!
3) Save Yourself from Criticism
Everyone has their opinions on child rearing and I'd hate to be the source of dinner table gossip after posting a pic of something I decided to do with my daughter. When you post a picture of yourself or your family on the internet, it's there for everyone to put in their 2 cents.
4) The Future
I fully expect at some point that our kids will want to be part of whatever incarnation of social networking that is around, and most likely it will be when they are way too young (or at least what we will consider way too young). I feel that if I give my child a web presence at this point, it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to tell them"no" later on when they ask if they can have a facebook or twitter or whatever will be around. I won't be keeping them off of the internet if they're already on there.
5) You're Forced to Keep in Touch
Though Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends, it's also lead to something of an over-casualization of correspondence since it's super easy to just like a post or leave a comment and not add any more depth to the interaction. It takes some effort to gather all the physical and email addresses of friends and family that you'd like to stay in touch with! Our solution to sharing our daughter's milestones without Facebook is to send out a monthly email, as well as holiday cards. Everyone likes getting a card in their mail or pics of cute babies in their inbox! There's something about having something physical to open up and look at like a picture or card that satisfies our caveman brains. People become more invested in your child's progress if they only see pictures every so often and have something they can stick on their fridge.
If you do decide to keep your kid off of Facebook it's important to go over your decidion with your family. You wouldn't want someone to ruin all your effort by posting a pic from a party. So far our family and friends have been very respectful and understanding and some have even applauded our decision.
We're also well aware that by emailing pictures Google has a copy for themselves that they can use however they like. So in the end is it an exercise in futility? Maybe, but we're trying our best to minimize any web presence our kids may have before they're old enough to make their own decisions on their web identity.
Today on the Liturgical Calendar
I hope you're all having a merry Christmas! Today is the Feast of Stephen of Christmas carol fame. I know I'm plum tuckered out from all the Christmas food and fun yesterday, so today is a day for relaxing and watching my baby play with her new toys.
What's NOT on Netflix
I'm not sure when Netflix's license for Jim Henson studio films expired, but when it did so did some of their great Christmas specials including The Christmas Toy and one of my favorites Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas. I might just have to get a hard copy for my holiday viewing. Until then you can see some of the musical numbers the Jim Henson YouTube channel.
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