I have been reading a lot of mommy blogs lately and I think, I am done with them. Here are somethings I don't understand about the mommy bloggers
- You take up a blog-name, call your kids bubble-gum, laddu, jaangiri, what not, to keep their identities private, but paste their pictures all over the blog and in every post.
- Some blogs even have ultrasound pictures. Now, that in my opinion, is violation of privacy of an unborn child. Poor kid has his/her goopy photo online, even before he/she has a chance to wash up and get dressed for the picture.
- Are these mommies really unaware of pedophiles lurking on the web? You keep only 10% of your child's identity private by not revealing his/her name, but violate the rest 90% by posting pictures. Please note, pedophiles do not need names, they need pictures. Well, you can say 'they are only baby pictures', well I can say, 'there may be some really sick persons looking at those pictures'.
- Or do you post pictures so that some baby magazine will come along and ask your baby to be on their cover? I don't know.
- Why don't you people understand privacy?
- Kids are going to grow up and hold a lot of things against you, why feed into that? Remember the times when your parents asked you to sing some song in front of the guests, but you wanted to go hide under the table? Now some of these mommy blogs are just that, but in front of the whole online world, where you don't know anyone beyond the few people who comment on your blog.
Somehow people have lost the idea behind blogs. What most mommy bloggers need is a private space to post their baby's milestones and pictures and share it with family and friends. Blogs are not that. They are open to every voyeur, passerby, search engine answer seeker etc. Why is this so hard to understand? If you really have parenting decisions that you would like to share, then blog about it. Please spare me details about how to cure constipation and eczema. And above all please stop posting pictures of your babies. They are entitled to their privacy.
Finally, I want a legislation banning parents from posting pictures of their kids online.
- You take up a blog-name, call your kids bubble-gum, laddu, jaangiri, what not, to keep their identities private, but paste their pictures all over the blog and in every post.
- Some blogs even have ultrasound pictures. Now, that in my opinion, is violation of privacy of an unborn child. Poor kid has his/her goopy photo online, even before he/she has a chance to wash up and get dressed for the picture.
- Are these mommies really unaware of pedophiles lurking on the web? You keep only 10% of your child's identity private by not revealing his/her name, but violate the rest 90% by posting pictures. Please note, pedophiles do not need names, they need pictures. Well, you can say 'they are only baby pictures', well I can say, 'there may be some really sick persons looking at those pictures'.
- Or do you post pictures so that some baby magazine will come along and ask your baby to be on their cover? I don't know.
- Why don't you people understand privacy?
- Kids are going to grow up and hold a lot of things against you, why feed into that? Remember the times when your parents asked you to sing some song in front of the guests, but you wanted to go hide under the table? Now some of these mommy blogs are just that, but in front of the whole online world, where you don't know anyone beyond the few people who comment on your blog.
Somehow people have lost the idea behind blogs. What most mommy bloggers need is a private space to post their baby's milestones and pictures and share it with family and friends. Blogs are not that. They are open to every voyeur, passerby, search engine answer seeker etc. Why is this so hard to understand? If you really have parenting decisions that you would like to share, then blog about it. Please spare me details about how to cure constipation and eczema. And above all please stop posting pictures of your babies. They are entitled to their privacy.
Finally, I want a legislation banning parents from posting pictures of their kids online.
32 comments:
puke on them, no, by lnk putting.
Just when Im contemplating when to stop posting photos of my daughter, heres your post saying "Stop already!!"
The reason for posting photos -
i) What I dont know wont hurt me (regarding the misuse of the photos)
ii) posting photos is as addictive as blogging itself. I started my blog when my daughter was 6 months old and did nt think twice before posting photos. Once I started, I could nt stop.
iii) Look, my child is cute!
iv) Will stop once the kid is older but the day never comes!
v) Peer pressure. So many parents are doing the same. Let me post photos too!
vi) Look, my child is cute!
vii) A little guilt. I love looking at kids photos when reading about them and I want to do the same for the readers of my blog.
vii) Im like the cat who shut his eyes to darken the world!
vii) And I repeat, "look what I made and its cute!"
I know the reasons for NOT posting photos are stronger and whatever reasons we might say for posting photos will look ridiculous but I guess there are 2 kinds of moms. Those who post photos and those who dont. Simple as that.
I just realized that my whole comment is hypocritical since I believe in "better to be safe than sorry"! All the more proof for you that this is an addiction! I intend to slow down and completely stop once she starts Kindergarten. Thats the plan, anyway. And privacy? She ll get it when she can clean her own bottom! ;)
I - onnaa, rendaa link put a? :)
Oops! Did nt realize I left such a long comment. I should have posted in my blog instead. With a photo to prove my point! ;)
i, link puttina, kai thaan valikkum.
boo, hope you can get over your addiction. nice to know you have plans to stop.
someone sent me your link and i came over.. here are my reasons.
as parents we are making decisions for our kids from the word go. right from whether to breast feed or bottle feed to whether we should stay home with them or leave them at daycare. whether they should take piano lessons or maths coaching. whether they should go to baording or not. i'd say a lot of these are a lot more life changing than a few pics online. those are the decisions which need to be thougth through a lot more than a few here. the only reason we use nicks are so that they dont get googled up. otherwise i am okay with ppl knowing our identities. there is nothing shameful in what we have to say abt the kids.
also, notions of privacy are changing. to begin with, you are blogging and the world reads it. 50years ago no one would have dreamed of leaving their diary open to the world, would they?
finally, perverts exist everywhere. there might be a neighbour who exposes himself to my kid at the window everyday. can i stop that? no, and yet it causes my child more harm than some fellow jerking off across the world. and for every jerk who sees the pics, there are ten ppl who appreciate it. the rest of the reasons are similar to boo's. we've made the kids and are proud of them and love displayiong the pictures just as our parents made us recite poems. we may have hated it then but we survived it with little scarring!
finally, the day my child tells me to stop, i will. but at the rate myspace and other networking site profiles are growing, i have a feeling our kids wont care either way. eventually its our call as parents. and if they dont like it, its their right to tell us to take it down and our responsibility to remove them. nobody else's. either way, i see you are done with the mommy blogs in any case :)i can imagine them holding no pleasure for others.
if the idea is to truly understand the reasoning and not merely rant at the mothers, this link will make sense to you.. if not, c'est la vie
http://themadmomma.blogspot.com/2007/02/hipster-parent-and-privacy-issues.html
Choosing the bottle or the breast, piano lessons or math, daycare or nanny, all these we do as part of nurturing our kids to the best of our ability. They do not violate the child's privacy in any way.
"and for every jerk who sees the pics, there are ten ppl who appreciate it."
I really don't understand this. How it can be alright with you is beyond me.
"finally, perverts exist everywhere."
As a parent, i think it is up to us to protect our children, not feed into someone's perversions by posting pictures.
"finally, the day my child tells me to stop, i will"
If a child lives in a family of smokers, it is not going to go up the parents and tell them, 'you are subjecting me to second hand smoke, which can give me lung cancer, so please stop'.The child will think it is alright for parents to smoke, because children don't question parents, not until they are much older. In the same way for the child to realise that his/her pics can be accessible to a pedophile and then making a decision to ask mommy to stop posting pictures, is all going to take a long time. It is much easier for an adult parent to make that decision, if the parent respects the child's privacy.
Anyway, this whole thing seems futile. You don't understand my views on privacy and I don't understand your need to post pictures, despite knowing what lurks around in the world wide web. Let us just leave it at that.
bale bale! sabaash!
From an entertainment point of view, mommy blogs are boring and insipid. It is really so even for readers who are parents.
I think mommy blogs deliver immense personal satisfaction to the mommy at a potentially heavy price.
hawkeye,
un vaikku oru laddu! sonniye oru vari...
"I think mommy blogs deliver immense personal satisfaction to the mommy at a potentially heavy price."
adhe thaan!
I would assume that one should probably post pictures of their kids AFTER they are old enough to clearly state that they're okay with it.
I am no parent, but something about this "there is always a pervert anyway" doesn't quite cut it for me. I don't understand why that has anything to do with the fact that some children become more vulnerable because of the actions of their parents.
But then, I might be told that I am not a parent etc. But I don't see why parents have a monopoly over common sense. Thank you so much for writing this post ...
Hear hear!
neha,
You are very welcome. You don't have to be a parent to respect your family's privacy.
Living in America, you are constantly reading/hearing about privacy issues, identity theft, pedophiles lurking in chat rooms, parental control for TV, parental control for the internet etc. That is probably why I am shocked at how naive some these mommy bloggers are.
Shyam, thanks for being here,here!
I keep a 'protected journal', personally -- which only close friends and select family members can read. Since we no longer live in tight knit communities anymore, I feel sharing details online is a reasonable substitute for physical closeness.
I appreciate being able to read about other people's child rearing experiences for much the same reason: I don't have a lot of family around to teach me these things. I read a lot of books, but I also read a lot of blogs. That said, I don't think it's necessarily good to be as revealing as many of them are. I am a strong advocate of privacy as well. . but then some people are just far more private than others so perhaps it is a personal choice. Most sexual offenders know their victims. . .and pedophiles can go to parks and schools to check out kids. Blogs are yet another venue I suppose, which is bad but not the be all and end all, all things considered. Not something you or I would be comfortable with, but apparently fine for others.
nega (in pure thamizh),
actions of such parents puts some children who are not on the radar - on the radar.
As a blog's content gets diluted with more and more personal information you are feeding voyuers/gossipers and not readers interested in good content.
Consider a person who blogs in detail about her personal sex life in order to provide information about safe sex/sex techniques - the amount of readers who visit to seek the 'information' will be 1% the amount of people who are voyuers/interested in the author's personal life stories/gossip will be 99%.
Basically gaining readership mileage by divulging too many personal details is a cheap trick and reflects on the author's immaturity.
Mommy bloggers diivulging personal details of the children is not as bad as the above example but just 1 step away from that.
I have long thought that people do not think through privacy implications of their actions on the Internet.
Foremost though, it is a good thing that most parent bloggers use nicknames and not their real identities - the worst thing possible is for a stranger to stalk you or your kid after viewing your blog.
I see from the comments that people are saying that perverts can exist anywhere, including your next-door neighbor and the guy who sees you with your kid at the park. All true. But what would you think if your next-door neighbor or the guy at the park snapped tons of pictures of your kid and put them up on the net? Creepy and definitely violates privacy. Yet the end result of putting up tons of your kids' snaps is exactly the same.
Most of the time, the net offers "security through obscurity"; it's unlikely that among the few thousand parent-kid blogs out there, yours will be the targeted one. However, it can happen, especially if you write well and become very popular. And its a sad fact but the parts of society that are vulnerable need most protection... which is why despite the risk of sounding like an MCP - I usually discourage the girls I know from putting up photos and identities online. Just google "attack on Kathy Sierra".
There are also far more perverts online than you'll find in the park or in the neighborhood and they can do worse than what you imagine them doing, if they have pictures and Photoshop. Sad and disgusting, but true. Yes, it is unlikely to happen given the obscurity offered by the Net, but whether you're comfortable is not is your call as a parent. The least you owe yourself and your children is to think it through.
Sowmya, thank you so much for sending me a link to this post.
I don't have anything against the blogs that put up personal pics and information. I just assume they've figured that it's right for them.
But.
From my perspective, everything we do with respect to our children is preceded by an assessment of the pros and cons. We don't have to consciously think about many of these decisions after the first few months of becoming a parent - instinct kicks in (we hope!) - but for many others, it's a constant balancing act - how much do you let go, how much do you retain control over? For example, letting them go alone into an airport bathroom, letting them walk up the street to a friend's house alone in the dark, etc. In each of these instances and a million others, the goal is to minimize the risk (of all sorts of things). And from that perspective, it seems less risky not to put up photographs. Plus it has the virtue of the kids not losing out on anything (i.e., if I kept them at home without letting them walk up the street by themselves until they were 18, they would lose out).
Although I would not have framed this as a privacy issue, I can sort of see your point. We would definitely ask an adult for permission to put up their photograph online and it would seem that kids deserve the same consideration. I remember a lady I interviewed for one of my articles who did not even want her daughters' names to appear in the article without her checking with them first. I thought that was so cool.
I've just felt very odd every time I've thought about putting up personal pics, but I just thought I was weird. :D Glad to know I have company.
sowmya: true. you dont need to get my point as i dont have to appreciate yours. very often i too see other parents doing things that are beyond me. we might all be parents but there are plenty of things that other parents do that we dont approve of. perhaps a legislation banning all of those?! :)
and to those who talk of checking with a child etc... as boo says, when they can clean their own bottoms?! I often change diapers in the middle of a train journey or at a park. i dont think they'd really like that either.. but then that is just one of those many choices i make for them.
on the subjects of constipation and eczema, some of us have found cures for our children thanks to it. i for one am grateful to the www because it was someone online who gave me the best remedies for my child. i can see it boring others but then the great thing abt freedom is that you dont need to read what you dont want, isnt that right?!
Sowmya, just wanted to add:
Like all the other kinds of blogs out there - political blogs, recipe blogs, science blogs, etc. - the parenting blogs have a place. And because they are parenting blogs, the content is all about raising kids in all it's glorious and gory detail. There are a few posts on my blog that are gory and some people might feel queasy reading it, but it also had the effect of readers thinking that they are not alone, other people go through this stuff too. That is a very powerful tool, especially when you are raising kids far away from families. And for that I absolutely love the writing in the parenting blogs. (I say parenting b/c it's mommy and daddy blogs.)
What we choose to put on them is purely personal, but what I am convinced about is that each blogger has gone only as far as they are comfortable from the point of view of their children's safety. All our notions of safety will not be similar, but as a mother I can only know that we all go through that assessment for the sake of our kids.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, there is no objective measure of what flies.
Sujatha,
After writing three paragraphs in a comment section, if you are still guessing what you are actually saying, I don't think you are saying anything at all.
Hawkeye,
There are two things, sharing and seeking attention. When you want to share you can show restraint, divulge only what you want the other person to know, when you seek attention you cannot do that.
Anshul,
Thanks for sharing your views. One look at your blog traffic should be enough to tell you that there are more unknowns that read your blog than knowns. Some people either choose to ignore it or are comfortable putting up pictures of their kids for strangers to see. I guess it their prerogative.
Sujatha,
I agree with you when you say, you don't deprive your kids of anything when you don't put up their pictures online. But I don't know why you don't see this as a privacy issue. There is a difference between sharing anecdotes and pictures. I guess sharing anecdotes requires a certain amount of writing skill, while posting a picture doesn't. I know I am getting unpleasant here, but that is how strongly I feel about kids' privacy.
Athena,
I agree with you. Parenting blogs do form a support system for those of us who raise kids away from our own families and friends.
I guess different people have different comfort levels. You know mine.
Sowmya, I agree with you that putting up our children's pictures online is something to feel strongly about, but just like a million other issues, this issue is a slippery slope (for e.g., kids not allowing parents into their rooms - will we allow our kids to shut off their rooms to us?) and each of us has to find a point on the slope where we find balance. For you and I, that point is where there are no photographs online. For others, it is different. An even more conservative person than us might say that even talking about our kids online is a no, no. And they are welcome to their opinion too - as long as they live by it and don't stick it down our throats.
What matters here is that each of us makes the assessment for ourselves and they don't judge other people for their choices.
I think, as you do, that putting photos online carries an incremental risk but I might be doing something else that, in someone else's eyes, is exposing my children to unwarranted danger. Where do we draw the line here?
Nilu, thanks for your comment on my comment. I don't have the cut and dry answers to many of the issues that other people seem to have. I have my opinions and I live by them. But, I can completely understand, most of the time, where the other person might differ from me and I try not to impose my views on them. There is no one objective principle that all of us can live by and no one way is right for everyone. Of that, I am very sure.
Well said, Sujatha. Live and let live, blog and let blog.(Or don't blog, but let others blog as they wish to). There is always the freedom to not read what you do not like, and there are no hard and fast rules in this particular form of communication. There are also many mommy bloggers who post under their own names. Just seeing beautiful baby photographs brings great joy to many non-perverts, who enjoy seeing/reading about these delightful new human beings. Keeping them safe in the real world is probably a far more difficult job.
Exactly Sujatha. You have again written so many sentences that don't mean anything. If you don't have an answer, don't give one. You are not expected to, you know.
Hi Sowmya, somebody sent me a link to this post and while I'm not a parent, I am a regular reader of a couple of mommy blogs - the writing, as Sujatha pointed out, is pretty darn good at the places I frequent and I've genuinely come to care for those kids in an (online) aunt sort of way, which still surprises me sometimes.
Still, when I first began reading those blogs the privacy issue did come up for me. And I even said as much to a couple of moms. But here's where you and I differ - I don't think this is a legislative issue.
I do think kids are entitled to their privacy but this is one of those rights that the parent has to decide for the child till a certain age, right or wrong. Unless something directly places a child in danger, the State has no business stepping in and telling someone how to parent their child or to question their parenting decisions. And say, blogging about your kids is outlawed, what next? Would you outlaw showing your kids' pics to co-passengers on a plane? Talking about your kids in a crowded restaurant? You may find this kind of behavior irritating but we can't enact legislation based on what we find irritating.
I wish we could sometimes but we just can't :D
You don't have to like that, but the point is, nobody is asking you to. Nobody is saying, because this law does not exist, therefore you should blog about your kids if you have any and post their pics. But the moment you start telling people what they can or cannot write about or share with the world, you're basically making decisions for them that you are not qualified to make.
This is one of those finicky situations where the rights of the child come into conflict with the rights of the parent (privacy vs. expression) but in this case, the parent wins out because he/she is the guardian of the child's privacy until such a time the child can make decisions for her/himself.
And my opinions on posting pics aside (I don't even post pics of myself so you can imagine what I feel on the issue), after reading these blogs, if those brats grow up , read those blogs and feel their parents did them wrong, they must be some of the biggest asses ever born.
Amrita, I am tired of this issue. There are people that understand internet security and there are those that don't.
If you look at the title of the post you will notice the word 'rant'. I am not going to go the nearest congressman's office to ask for a legislation, so please stop telling me why this cannot be made a law.
When you take a kid to a restaurant or in a plane, you are not violating the kids privacy, but when you post pictures you are. I am sure you will not get this, but I will anyway say it.
I am not asking any of the mommy bloggers to listen to me, nor am I making decisions for them. This is my blog and I am just airing my opinions. Did I mention that it was a 'rant'?
Pedophiles online are a reality, not a figment of my imagination. If you choose to ignore it, fine by me. I lose nothing.
I think I have made my position on this issue very clear. You are putting your child at risk by posting pictures. That is all there is to it.
I'm not a parent. Sowmya, like you, I do not think parenting blogs should divulge personal info/pics of their kids.
BUT
I think I have some insight as to WHY they do it.
Here's the skinny:
- Parents like to SHOW OFF their kids
They really get a kick out of every time someone says 'Ohhh...sooo cuuute' and consider it a personal accomplishment. It is their way of 'fishing' for compliments.
As The Mad Momma said, 'we've made them'.... oh yeah. Take credit for their cuteness, its just like you created the work of art that is your kid.
Needless to say, I think this is extremely shallow of the parents. Not to mention selfish, putting your need for compliments ahead of the kids' safety.
Same answer, different question: Why do parents of toddlers/infants dress up their kids in halloween costume and take them door to door when the infants can't eat candy and have no clue what halloween is? It's not so they can enjoy the tradition. It's not so the parents can enjoy the candy. It's so that the parents can enjoy the 'Ohhhh...soooo cuuuute's.
Any parents out there who want to disagree?
Another_Sowmya: Plenty of parents out there who will disagree, but don't probably want to waste time with it. Non parents don't get it!
Sowmya: While your point may be fine and dandy, If you had not enconsed it in so much negativity and silly immature "I hate mommy blogs" type of statements, you might have actually made a point.
As it is, you're going for the jugular while actually pretending that you care about our kids privacy. Hah. What is it that you really want to say?
poppins: well said!
Other-Sowmya: As Poppins said - plenty of parents would disagree with you IF they had the time or inclination. The one thing that parents tend to have in short amounts is time for such trivial discussions.
Sowmya: Again, as Poppins said - had you framed your post as a statement of your opinions, we would have respected that. But the post seems more like an attack on parent bloggers for their choices. Do you always attack poeple who don't agree with you in a similar manner? Please see my response to Other_Sowmya above. And no one twisted your arm to come read these "mommy-blogs". So stop already!
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