We chose to minimise our child's social media footprint (for now)

Val and I opted to minimise our child's online presence, for now. On the one hand, we want to protect his privacy; on the other, we want to show him respect by waiting until he can approve of photos of him before they go online.

I am happy that my immediate family is okay with our decision. My brother and sister are not posting photos of him as well. However, a lot of people do not understand why we want to keep him off social media. Some of my closest friends, understandably, want to see his photos on my accounts and were telling me to just keep my accounts private if I want to control who can view my child's photos. Others don't understand why Val and I are taking our son's privacy seriously; these relatives or friends have been posting photos of their own kids to document and to share their happiness around. And then there are relatives who take screenshots of Zoom family meetings and then post these on their platforms under the belief that they need to upload a photo or else an event didn't happen. 

But Val and I are different from other parents. We grew up in a world where our baby photos were not posted online without our permission because the internet was non-existent at the time. Any photo of us online are mostly of us as adults. Our childhoods are mostly kept private and any online photo we post from our early days are properly curated. 

Also, we believe that our responsibility is to keep our son safe, and his body and mind healthy. It is not our responsibility to satisfy other people's curiosity nor to provide material for water cooler talk. We don't want our child to be subject to future teasing brought about by awkward baby photos posted online. We want him to grow up with room to be a child; for example, to have temper meltdowns that don't get publicised and immortalised on the internet. We will shield him, as much as we can, from social media comments that centre around negative body image.

This is ironic really, because photography is one my hobbies and I've been taking a lot of photos of the little guy. 

Anyway, to each his own. If other people want to post photos of their children, I respect this decision. But I also appreciate not being coerced into posting photos of my child. Val does not have the same problem because he doesn't have a social media account.

So on the day people see photos the wee one on my social media platforms, they'd know that he has granted me permission to do so. Until then, he will largely be absent from my Timeline and Feed.