If you’ve paid attention to my website and social media accounts, you might have noticed that I don’t share much personal information and never share pictures of my daughter online. I’ll get into my “whys” today.

Lion’s Pride

When I had my baby, I finally understood why there were so many pictures online of people sharing images and stories of their children. We love them so much; they are our lives’ lights! They make us laugh, smile, fill our hearts with joy, and see the world in new ways.

As I wrote this post, this image came to mind: Simba being held up for all the pride to see.

I get it; we want to share that joy with the world! However, the world is also what keeps me from posting about mine.

Safety

Safety is one of the biggest reasons we have made this choice.

We currently live in a small town community that is relatively safe. It’s difficult not to encounter someone you know personally or have mutual friends, family, or acquaintances within a small town. We feel pretty safe where we live. Though there are crimes that do happen, we don’t have shootings, big robberies, gangs, etc. Areas with higher populations surrounding ours DO experience these crimes.

However, over the last few years, I have noticed change in our community, as have many of the people I talk to. The bigger cities are bleeding into our smaller towns now; more drugs and more criminals are filtering into small towns.

I am telling you this as a nurse and as someone who talks with police and correctional officers (the guards at prisons) regularly.

Please also remember that trafficking does still exist, and nowhere is immune from being a source for more people.

That being said, here are some things I wish people would be more mindful of doing:

• Stop posting pictures from the first day of school! You’re sending your child off to school with a full image: what they look like, what they’re wearing, what their backpack looks like, where they live, etc.
• To piggyback that- Stop putting kids’ names on the outside of their backpacks where anyone can see them. Children are more trusting of adults/strangers when they know their names.
• Stop sharing images of children in their extracurricular activities and uniforms. This puts them at risk of being targeted as being away from guardians during those activities.
• Limit the amount of detail you give online. I recently was on the Facebook marketplace buying something secondhand. Since there have been far too many attempts from spammers lately, I usually click on the buyer/seller profiles. At the top of one of the seller’s profile were both of their kid’s birthdays – in their bio! Plus, their profile picture included both children.

She’s going to be an adult one day.

It is no secret to the world that we all grow up. Well, let me clarify that we all get BIGGER at least, haha – I see you adult-children out there! 😉

They say that nothing put on the internet ever truly goes away. Tech wizards may be good at hiding data, but much of the ability we common folks have isn’t even going to compare. We can share something on social media somewhere and delete it. That doesn’t mean someone somewhere didn’t save or screenshot the post, though! There is absolutely no guarantee that once something is uploaded, it can be taken back down without some residual existing online.

Many of us have that one “detective” friend who can find anything and piece together any story. They have gathered pictures and histories of people. They dig up or discover where someone’s working now, who they’re dating, or any number of things. Sometimes, they reach back a decade to get the information they’re looking for. These “detectives” rarely have anything malicious planned unless they’re out to tease and jest. But, they have an uncanny ability to uncover and piece together information from several social platforms. It’s a little amazing and scary if I’m honest.

One of the main things my husband and I discussed while pregnant was wanting our children to decide how much of themselves they wanted the entire world to see. They should have the choice to share their own images and stories. If I do it for her, she will have a narrative already in place, a lens through which the world will see her. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends share stories, images, and videos of children growing up that could one day embarrass them or be something they never want anyone outside of their family to know or see.

We want our daughter and any future children we have to be able to step into adulthood and create their own image. We want to give them the freedom to create their own visible story.

My job as a parent

I love my daughter with all my heart. I intend to give her that love while being her guardian and teacher as she grows. With the help of the other people who love her, she will grow up capable of taking on her world. Until then, it’s my job to protect her to the best of my ability as she enjoys life as a kid. Keeping her safe from the online world as long as I can is one of the ways we’re doing that.

If you have any other suggestions below, please comment or email me, and I will update this posting!