Your Child and Privacy on the Internet

Do you post pictures of your child on the internet? What about hilarious but potentially embarrassing stories?

Last week I stumbled upon this post from Julie Matlin about her 3 year old daughter and privacy. Not too long afterward I found Mom101′s post about her 5 year old and a story that she specifically asked her mom not to blog about.

And it really got me thinking. I am putting it all out there on the internet. Is it too much? Do I go to far?

Oversharing? I think not!

Any other parent bloggers out there know that funny stories are the most fun entries to write. But these are also the blog posts that are most likely to humiliate our children once they are 14 and old enough to google us.

Even for those who aren’t blogging, many of us are posting pictures on facebook – which of course facebook can then use and display as they like – or putting them up on twitter or instagram. Are we taking it to far? I post around 7-10 pictures of my baby a week on twitter and flickr. When I write it out like that, it seems like a lot. More than I thought, actually.

Not to mention those pictures are then included in my blog, and then it is fair game for people to access those photos and use them any way they like. A couple months ago I wrote a post wondering about dressing my baby boy in girl’s clothing. The search terms used that lead people to this post? Well, sometimes I can tell that they are looking for something with a mature theme. And that scares me. Are there people out there who are coming across this post, seeing my baby boy dressed (fully dressed!) in “girl clothes” and misusing the photos? I still sometimes consider removing that post due to my fear that someone may be approaching it with foul intentions.

When it comes down to it, I have two rules about putting my child and our relationship together out there for everyone on the internet:

1. Whatever I say has to come from a place of love and good intentions.
2. No talking about his baby junk!

Sometimes I am sad and I write about sad days. Sometimes I am tired and I have to vent and seek support. And sometimes I am exasperated and I just have to know that I am not the only one! But I am careful that anyone reading – anyone – can tell that it comes from a place of love.

As far as his baby junk? We avoid the naked baby pictures. That means all those adorable bathtime photos – and believe me there are TONS of adorable bathtime pictures – are not an option. And all those laugh-out-loud ridiculous pictures of him covered in poop – yes I stopped to take a picture, don’t judge me – are also not a choice. They are family only, not even for my very locked tight facebook account.

And believe me, I would love (love!) to weigh in on circumcision, being the opinionated mama that I am, but again… I really do believe that it is his body and he really probably doesn’t want his first girlfriend googling all about him and finding out about his foreskin before he’s even had a chance to kiss the girl.

I just can’t do that to him. Yet. Maybe someday he’ll give me consent, but I’m not holding out for it. I just accept that those are off-limit topics to me and focus on other things. And I do my best to protect him, to shield him from predators who scour the internet for people to exploit, but at the same time – I can’t lose my head over it either.

And I’ll try not to post too many pictures of that adorable beast, but it is really quite difficult not to share my love for him in photo form. I’ll reign it in, I swear. Next week.