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Parenting

09th Jan 2017

Why Sharing Snaps Of My Kids On Facebook Doesn’t Make Me The Worst Parent Ever

Amanda Cassidy

The average parent shares 1,500 snaps of their child before they turn five.

Is that all?

I would have thought the number was much higher (from the zillions of baby pics clogging up my Facebook feed)

The study, called Sensible Sharing, found that more than half of the parents questioned claimed they had no concerns about any possible consequences from creating their baby’s digital footprint.

This is new ground for everyone.

So is showing a few snaps of your kids at the zoo really so awful?

Sharing your life on your social media is, for many parents, a way of documenting childhood milestones in a community of their own creation.

It’s when it is taken to the extreme that starts alarm bells ringing.

We have all heard about the 18-year-old girl from Austria who, a few months back, sued her parents for sharing images of her as a child.

Her concern was that the pictures left her feeling overly exposed – they depicted her having her nappy changed, sitting on the toilet and even lying naked in bed.

Too much.

I post pictures of my children on their birthday or on a pretty walk outdoors – I am very mindful of the context of the snaps and wouldn’t dream of uploading a picture of my child doing anything that the general public doesn’t see anyway. I have a very close-knit social media community and my settings are private.

As far as I am concerned, it is the modern day version of a wallet stuffed with photos of your kids. It is a nice way to keep track of the lives of friends and relatives that we just don’t get time to see in this non-stop busy life we find ourselves in with small children. They are innocent updates about my life which is very much dominated by mini-humans.

I am obnoxiously proud of my little creations so please stop making me feel like a terrible person for showing you a picture.

And if it still really bothers you, please scroll on by.

What do you think ladies, is over-sharing really compromising our children’s safety? Does it bother you when people clog up your feed with baby pictures?