I Say No To Sharenting
I want to get this out of the way early on in the life of this website. My child’s face will not be featured on this motherhood blog.
You likely will only see me refer to him using pronouns or phrases like “my toddler” or “my child.” In an industry dominated by visuals and saturated with mom-related content featuring adorably mischievous kids, this may seem like a stupid choice while attempting to run a social media based business. But, smart or not, it is a choice I stand by.
I have an interesting personal relationship with social media. I wrote my undergraduate honors thesis on social media marketing for small businesses and nonprofits. In my first marketing job, I pushed the organization to further utilize social media and leverage any resources we could to make our content stick out. For over seven years, I worked in marketing and branding, helping other people succeed by using social media. At the same rate that my professional social media use increased, my personal use decreased. I would post a photo here and there, reshare content to my Instagram story, and interact with friends' posts. But I wasn’t motivated to share my own content anymore. Over time, my profiles were reduced to bare bones, if not deleted altogether (I’m looking at you, Twitter). My partner’s social media use is non-existent, with the exception of trolling Reddit for memes and Harry Potter fan-fic. We hadn’t really thought about the need to reevaluate our family’s relationship with social media. Then our son came into the picture.
There is no getting around it - social media is one of the easiest and most convenient ways to share photos with family and friends who are spread out across the world. With one post, you can reach as many people as you have allowed into your network. But as we all know, you are also reaching people you very likely do not want having access to your personal photos, especially those of your children. Because of this, we decided early on that we would privately share photos with family and friends and would not publicly share our kid’s face.
As an Enneagram Type 1, INTJ, perfectionist Taurus I have a deep need for control over, well, everything. I cannot tell you how many times I have untagged myself in a photo on Facebook because I didn’t like how I looked. Yes, I cannot control what someone posts, but I can control (to an extent) how it is shared and if I am publicly linked to it. This is how I personally maintain boundaries and exercise consent. It works for me. But my one year old cannot do that for himself. It is my job to advocate for him and protect him until he is able to make his own choices. That is not a responsibility I will ignore in the pursuit of viral fame or clout.
My child has Disney princess eyes and cheeks that look like he has stored nuts for a whole family of squirrels to survive winter. He’s a 10 out of 10 adorable child. I know that pictures of W would get more likes and higher engagement — they may even reach the coveted viral status. But I cannot in good conscience post his photo to my social media accounts. I have other ways to share photos with the people I care about, so why do I need to share it publicly, other than for surface level attention and praise in the form of reaction emoji?
For parents, there is pure power in saying, “There is no right way*. There is only what is right for your family.” This is what’s right for my family. It may change one day. It may not. But as long as our decision is motivated by our values and beliefs and is not impacted by the noise around us, we’ll be okay.
Edited by Rae Fagin