You may have noticed that, while I may post an occasional photo of myself or my husband, I do not post photos of the kiddos without obscuring their faces. I also never mention their ages, genders, or names. In a world and time where absolutely everything is (over)shared on social media, that is a specific and purposeful choice.

Why might that be?

Many reasons, really. The quickest/simplest answer is that there are a whole lotta sickos and weirdos in the world and one of my jobs is to protect my kids from predators. I can’t prevent any random person in my town from seeing/interacting with them, but I don’t have to set them on a larger, less controlable stage for view. Many years ago, before I had kids, in the days when facebook was still mostly farmland, one of the girls I attended college with found her own (5 yr old) daughter’s photo on the personal page of a known paedophile. He had appropriated it from her page. She was, understandably, horrified, and I took it as a cautionary tale.

Shortly thereafter, two things happened in a very short timeframe: my sister in law posted a photo of my nephew, and a law was passed in France. The law stated that it was now illegal to post photos of any child under the age of thirteen, because they were legally unable to consent to the public use of their image. Good point. There have been many conversations around consent over the last decade or so, and we all know that what is put on the internet is there forever.

The photo of my nephew was one of the typically adorable toddler shots we all take of our kiddos. He was about 2 years old, wearing his rubber boots and nothing else, striding off down the hallway away from the camera. Nothing inappropriate, just a wee baby butt. One of the shots that makes loved ones say “awww.” But it made me wonder if 10 or 12 years down the road, the child in question would a) find it cute and b) be pleased that it was made public, or would he be horribly embarassed and uncomfortable? Impossible to know. And too late to ask at that point.

These things all happened before I had kids. Before I was married, even, but it formed an intention to keep my kiddos off the internet. Then, eventually, when we did have kids, a family member chose to be an unsafe person. That family member, by their own choice, has no contact with my family. They may be aware of how many kids we have, but that is all. They have never been informed of ages, names, birthdays. They have never recieved photos (unless another family member passed some on without our knowledge), they do not know where we live. This was partially their choice, and partly our decision to protect our kids because of that person’s actions toward us.

In the early days of our children’s lives, making this decision understood by extended family wasnt simple. They wanted to share photos. They wanted to ‘show off’ the kids, and we would have to remind and remind. Now, it is simply accepted as one of our mny eccentricities.

I have the responsibility to tend and raise many things, but my children are my first priority, and if I have to stand against the prevailing culture to shield them, well, it wouldn’t be the first time.