Q: I recently had a baby. In the days after the birth, I put a few photos of him on Facebook and was thrilled with the love that came back. Can I keep sharing photos of him on social media?
A: Congratulations! Not just on the baby, but on arriving at a central dilemma of modern parenting so early in the day. You love your baby, your friends and family love your baby, and a technology exists to bring you all closer. What possible harm is there in that?
I should say from the off I’m a killjoy about Facebook. Spending more than a few minutes on it fills me with dread. I have no self-discipline. I click on links to news stories about people getting their heads caught in machines and miracle skin creams you can import from Japan. I ogle the spouses of people I haven’t seen for three decades and think: “Hmm, could’ve done better.” A slew of recent studies shows that people get depressed by holding themselves up to the lives of others as they appear on social media and that bear only a passing resemblance to real life. Generally, people don’t post photos of themselves getting the bus to work or slumming it in economy, but if they fly business class to the Caribbean, here are 40 photos of the experience to make you feel bad.
I say all this by way of preamble because I think you need to consider the landscape into which you are introducing your beloved’s image. This isn’t about privacy settings, or how porous Facebook is, or whether your baby’s photo will fall into the hands of a paedophile. I don’t discount any of those things, but they are risks that all feel slightly pie in the sky. What is certain is that Facebook runs on an erratic emotional economy – partly driven by love, partly driven by, if not spite, exactly, then something murkier than good will. Why throw your kid’s face into that mix?
Well, for a start, because you’re a woman and judging by my own feed, women account for 99% of Facebook users uploading pictures of their kids. I understand. Every time I take a good photo of my kids – which is every time, because I think they are the most photogenic children in the world and I want everyone to bask in their light – I fight the urge to upload it. I am so ambivalent about this that a couple of times I have gone so far as to upload the photo, dithered over posting it, then come to my senses and cancelled the command.
Part of my ambivalence is a snotty theoretical resistance to women sublimating their identities into that of their children. I am also too lazy to prune my followers, so that pictures I post are seen by a guy I had a drink with in 2008 and some weird woman I sat next to on a plane to Toronto. Posting on social media is not intimate enough to be meaningful to those in my immediate circle and too intimate for those further out. I also just fundamentally hate Facebook at this point and don’t want my kids to be part of its business plan.
On the other hand. I miss all the likes and nice comments. My family is scattered around the world and I love seeing photos of my cousins’ kids, when they post. Social media at its best affords connections we can’t get at in real life and after a long day, it can be nice to send something out and get back love in return.
And yet the overwhelming feeling I have is still one of unease. Since their birth two years ago, I have put two photos of my kids on Facebook. One served as a birth notice; the second I posted in a moment of weakness at Christmas, and you can’t see either of the kids’ faces. Each time, I was reminded that no matter what your settings, Facebook isn’t private; it’s semi-private and these photos will never, ever be expunged. This is a generational squeamishness, perhaps – I’m 41, and to a 31-year-old, it mightn’t be a big deal. But it feels like a big deal to me.
More than that, it’s a question of my own motivation. Your heart may be purer than mine, but my urge to post photos of my kids, when I study it, turns out to be 90% wholesome, 5% need for approval, and 5% something I don’t want to call competition but can’t find any other word for. There is enough one-upmanship in this life without using our children as chips.
I don’t disparage those who go ahead and share. I admire their openness and sometimes wish I could be less uptight. The other day, I took a photo of my kids screaming in their tutus, an angry corps de ballet, and I wanted to share it on Facebook. You can do this, I thought. Why shouldn’t I share a funny picture of my children with friends? But I didn’t. Something about it just never feels right.
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If you would like advice from Emma Brockes on how to be a human online, send a brief description of your concerns to human.online@theguardian.com
