Sharenting: the new swear word or a new parent’s diary

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By E K Wills

our nuclear family
The internet is full of pictures of parents posting pics of their kids.
Sharing and parenting, known as ‘sharenting’ is the term given to parents who post images and stories of them and their children online.

Parents use ‘sharenting’ as a way for long distance friends and relatives to keep updated on family activities and developments and a diary of what they are experiencing. Of course there are also those that use it as a way to show how fabulous their lives are, but that’s another story…

Then there was a big scare about predators and paedophiles trawling the internet for baby and child pics and it was highlighted as a privacy issue. Waivers need to be signed before your child can be photographed at school and put in the school newsletter or on the website but as parents we are able to post individually any time.

Parents are being scorned for putting images of their children on social media such as FB and so we are forced to think about our position on the issue.
I read an article that likens the sentiment to reactionary mum bashing because it is often mums who post, particularly the ever-popular mummy bloggers.

But the question still remains around consent. I’m lucky at this stage because I have the ability to ask my children if they mind pictures of them being posted online: they are old enough. But would that change if I was now a new parent and wanted to share every cherished moment of my newborn with the wider community?

Is it really an issue to have these images available to the wider community?
Or is it an opportunity to reflect on what is appropriate to post? And to use it to guide our kids in their decisions as they become exposed to social media at ever younger ages?

I believe we still have our social gauge to measure what we want to post and, let’s face it, plenty of people put images online that many people wouldn’t dream of putting out there, but that is what freedom is about.
Personally, I started to reduce the number of images I posted online when the scare was first introduced. Now I am setting up a website, I have revisited the idea.
I have decided to support the concept of posting my family on my website because frankly I’m tired of being told to censor what I say.


Article: Stop bashing mums for posting photos of their children on social media - it's called parenting http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/family/i-share-photos-of-my-children-online---and-so-should-you/

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