7 Reasons Why I'm Apprehensive About Sharing My Baby Online

There’s been a million and one decisions that I’ve had to make since becoming pregnant. One of the decisions is how much of my child’s life I’m willing to share online. To be honest, this is a conversation my husband and I had way before we got pregnant. I knew I didn’t want to plaster my future child all over the internet. I’m a pretty private person, I think people share way too much online, and I just didn’t want to be one of those people. I think in the coming years, this topic of what to share online, is going to become big for our generation. After becoming pregnant, I realized there were certain compromises we were going to have to make. But I’m still apprehensive about sharing my baby online, here are my reasons why.

7 Reasons why I’m apprehensive about sharing my baby online

1. Privacy

Privacy is dead. I mean the internet basically killed any privacy that we once had. Everyone knows everything, and everyone posts everything. It’s worse than living in a small town. You can find out anything by a simple Google search, which is awesome when you want a recipe or to find out how late CVS is open, not so much when it comes to your children or personal life. I want to be able to keep my child’s life as private as I possibly can for as long as I can. And once something is out on the internet it’s basically impossible to take back, which brings us to point two.

2. Permanent Record

Remember in school when they used to say, “that’s going on your permanent record”. I used to have this image of a file with my name on it and every bad word, bad grade, or misbehavior being listed in that file and it eventually being given to colleges or jobs I applied to. I know now that doesn’t exist, but my 5th grade self was pretty terrified by that thought. With the internet though, a permanent record is created of any content that you put online. I don’t want to create all this information about my child that they may not want online.

3. Safety

As a business owner, all my information is pretty public already. Even if I wasn’t a business owner, I have a lot of friends online, and I don’t necessarily know all of them on a personal level, not in the way that I trust them all 100%. So every piece of information I share about my child could be used against me.

Also, the internet is a scary place. You never know who is watching and who can get a hold of photos and where those photos will end up. Smart phones geotag photos and Facebook and Instagram add location to photos and posts too. Plus, people can ruin even the most innocent photos and take them out of the intended context.

4. Embarrassment

One day my child will grow up and it’s hard enough to be a teenager. Could you imagine their friends finding pictures of them naked, or reading stories about them from when they were younger. Sure every little kid throws temper tantrums, and it’s my duty as a mom to show their significant other every picture of their naked booty and embarrass the heck out of them! But it doesn’t need to be done online in front of every single one of their friends.

5. Bullies

Again, it’s hard enough being a teenager. And bullies are sometimes an unavoidable part of that. I don’t want to give my child’s bullies any additional ammo. I’m hoping my child will never have to deal with bullies, but I surely don’t want something that I once posted to be the reason my child gets bullied.

6. Choice

Ultimately, it’s my child’s choice want they want posted online. Maybe they will completely reject the internet and all of it’s instant gratification likes. They may not want to share it all with the world, and instead want to share things with only a select few. I don’t want to make that choice for them. When they are old enough, I want them to be able to curate whatever type of online presence fits their life.

7. Oversharing

I don’t want to overshare and be a feed hog. I have a lot of Facebook friends that I don’t know very well, but I know everything about their children! I understand being a proud parent, but I also know that not all 300+ Facebook friends and all my Instagram followers care about my child. And I don’t want to be that person you roll your eyes at in your newsfeed.

Obviously, keeping my child completely offline is probably not going to happen either. I mean a parent can dream right! I know I will have to make some compromises, but knowing why I’m apprehensive makes those compromises a little easier.