Something I have been torn over for a while is the question of “How much of my daughter’s life do I share online?”
With blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and other services it’s more convenient than ever to post photos, share little blurbs about their day, and our reactions as parents to certain things. And as an excited parent of a 2 year old girl I find lots of stuff I want to share with others. Even though I’ve been hesitant to blog about her, and I rarely do, people could probably find out information about her pretty quickly online. Between my wife, our families and I, there is more than enough out there. Actually, there is more online than I want there to be at this point.
But I think this is a discussion worth having because I think too many people quickly excuse it and say that “it doesn’t matter”, or if “people really want to find them, then they will.” Or some say, well the future is the internet, so we are just helping them jump online early. But maybe that is more about you than your kids.
I have seen some of the discussions going around, but one that caught my eye was Wess Daniels‘ recent post, Limiting Access: Flickr and Archiving Our Children’s Lives. Wess states:
Now, I am no alarmist and I am not about to get all privacy this and that on you, but I appreciated the question my friend Fernando put to me on twitter: “it’s about giving people control over their “digital destiny.” How will the stuff we post hit our kids future relationships?” And this is really it for me. Not only do we not know what it’s like to have our entire lives archived online, we are the ones choosing what to post and what not to post for the public.
Wess concludes with:
I’ll leave the archiving up to my daughters when they’re ready to do it themselves (Lord knows Google’s got a nice archive on me).
One of the articles that seems to have really challenged Wess’ thinking on this topic was the New York Times article Guardians of their Smiles
from a couple of weeks ago.
This article focuses on the safety of putting so much of our kid’s lives online, but I think Wess hits on something important when he writes, “How will the stuff we post hit our kids future relationships?” As parents we are usually constantly thinking about our kid’s safety, but I do think we fail to realize what affect the online profile we are building them right now could do to them relationally.
I’m currently working with quite a few kids in therapy as well as ministry, and one of the growing conversations that kids are engaging me in is their embarrassment of what their parents are posting about them online, whether it be a picture or some random comment on Twitter. As parents we might think it’s funny to say something like, “my husband just had the birds and the bees talk with our son”, or “sometimes being a parent is exhausting.” As parents we see it as no more than an opportunity to share a piece of our life with others, or to connect with other parents online. But to your kids, it’s more than that.
Now you may not have older kids, and you find no harm about posting stuff about your two year old. But I would ask you to think a bit longer on what you are posting. What effects, if any, will posting this stuff online have on my kids, or their relationships later on?
Just this last month three parents have shared with me how their kids (some as young as 5 and some older) have asked their parents not to post something after a certain event took place.
THINK ABOUT THAT
A five year old had to tell her parent not to post something online that would embarrass her. Wow! Maybe in our rush to share our kid’s live and archive/lifestream their events we are robbing them of something. Maybe it’s quite possible as well that our technology is getting in the way of our relationships with them.
If as a parent I find myself more quickly wanting to post something cute my 2 year old just said, rather than just enjoying that moment….then I have a major problem.
I will continue to wrestle with this topic and you will continue to see me say things about my daughter, but I know it’s something I need to think longer on. And I need to ask myself the question if what I’m doing online is really for them, or really for me? Is it really more about filling up something inside of me than about preparing an online future for them (one that we really aren’t giving them any say in at this point )?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe it’s quite possible as well that our technology is getting in the way of our relationships with them.
Rhett,
Thanks for taking my post further and adding thoughtful and reflective content about these issues. When I was thinking about making a switch in the constant barrage of archiving of L’s life, I thought back, “have I seen Rhett posting his daughter’s life…?” I felt like you had already done a better job of holding back than I had, and isn’t that really what it is, a holding back? It takes serious disciple to not want to share our children’s lives, I don’t think the initial impulse is negative but that doesn’t mean we should cave to it.
Another thought was how much of this is really about commodifying our children? I’m sorry but a lot of parental bloggers and flickr users are commodifying their children. And I have serious issues with that. It’s easy to give into, who doesn’t want their kid to be a star, have their picture favorited hundreds of times, etc? And for many, blogging about their children has become a means of making money, expanding readership, etc. I can’t imagine what image those children have of their parents, do they feel used like your example of the 5 yr. olds asking their parents not to post. (Wow, I hope I don’t can stop before we get to that point).
So I think your question is great: “And I need to ask myself the question if what I’m doing online is really for them, or really for me? Is it really more about filling up something inside of me than about preparing an online future for them (one that we really aren’t giving them any say in at this point )?”
Finally, you ask, “What effects, if any, will posting this stuff online have on my kids, or their relationships later on?” But I’m not sure we can even answer this question. For one, shouldn’t it be our kids who answer this question, and if they can’t answer it than maybe we should reconsider until they can, and secondly, we have absolutely no idea what kinds of innovations the Web will go through and so I think our speculations should be very tender.
My feeling is really that there is a difference between us and them. I choose what parts of my life, what thoughts, what photos, etc. to post, they on the other hand have no choice. This seems to me to be the most troubling feature of archiving our children online.
Thanks for your thoughts!!!
Wess,
Wow, great comment. Appreciate the feedback. The only reason I probably didn’t have as much content online of my daughter as yours is because you are more tech savvy. I take photos and video but always dropped the ball on getting them online, etc. So it’s not that my desire was less, it’s just that I didn’t have carry through. haaaa.
You point to a whole other issue about commodifying our children. I think that most parents, and you probably agree don’t do this. But there are some cases where I have cringed at some of the photos parents have posted online where they were the laughter really came at the expense of the kids, yet parents probably didn’t think about it since the kids were too young to notice.
Lots to think through my man……
Rhett
Rhett Smith´s last blog ..Your Kids Online: What Are You Doing to Them?
Rhett, Hey its been a long while. This is a very interesting post and brings up plenty for me to continue to think about and ponderer.
It is a bit ironic perhaps the way I re-stumbled upon your blog just now. I was doing a google check on my own name as I have just begun the steps for coming under care of classis in my denomination for ordination and I want to see what trail I have left out in cyberspace. A comment I left on a post announcing the birth of your daughter two years ago is one of the things that came up. (And so I thought I should see what you are writing about these days).
I know I have found recently that I have written many things and posted them to the www that I wish I never had. I certainly do not want to start building a trail of regrets or embarrassments even now for my two children, who cannot even give their own input yet.
Thank you for these thoughts. I will continue to think on these things.
Blessings,
~wayne
wayne´s last blog ..Same as it Never Was?
Wayne,
Haaaa. That is irony. Very much so. I’ve done the same as you…gone back to check what pops up on a Google search cause some stuff I’ve written I’m not real proud of. It’s interesting now too, because clients can easily google me and find out info…make a determination if I’m a good fit or not without ever having met me, or realized that part of seeing ourselves online, we also see us grow…hopefully.
Good luck with the ordination stuff…keep me updated.
How is the writing going?
Rhett
Rhett Smith´s last blog ..MyTherapistMatch: Clearing the Connection Hurdle Between Client and Therapist
Good points. I’m pretty well versed on the privacy aspects, but hadn’t quite thought through the implications of “when your kids get older.”
I think a lot of people misunderstand that there are many levels of sharing between web abstinence and sharing everything about your life on your blog.
For the less tech-savy readers, it’s pretty easy to prevent your webcontent from getting indexed, which means you can share it without having to worry about it being indexed.
WordPress has an option to hide your site from search engines (settings->privacy) and I’d assume most other blogging platforms do as well.
Likewise, photo repositories like Flickr and Picasa make it easy to restrict images and folders so you can control who has access to them.
If you have your own site with a hosting service it’s as simple as creating a robots.txt file.
Scott Lenger´s last blog ..I am Not a Christian…
Scott,
Thanks for sharing. Lots of good info. here from you. I really learned a lot. At least there are plenty of options available to someone deciding how they want to share information online.
I tend to not worry too much about this stuff, but that’s why I want to make sure I’m thinking about it. Make sure I’m not underestimating the effects it can have.
Rhett
Rhett Smith´s last blog ..MyTherapistMatch: Clearing the Connection Hurdle Between Client and Therapist
I post photos of myself and my kids on Flickr. I do use some caution. For example, I would never post nude photos of my little ones. We have plenty of cute shots of the kids playing in the bathtub, but I’m not going to share them because of the creeps. To date, I haven’t had any concerns about they way that others are viewing my kids’ photos.
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