A brouhaha broke out on Instagram recently over a picture of a 3-year-old eating ice cream while taking a bath. The issue was not about eating ice cream in the bath tub — truthfully I think the concept is brilliant — but instead, everyone freaked out about the blogger publicly posting a full frontal nude photo of her child for the viewing pleasure of her 25,000-plus followers.
via Sharing ‘cute’ naked photos of your kids online: Just don’t – TODAY.com.
I have written before about children whose lives are being shared on the internet.
It seems that there is little thought given to how these kids will feel when they are older and happen upon these “stories” about themselves and their families.
It seems that there should be more thought given to the impact that this life sharing can have on a child…this is really uncharted territory. There has never been a generation that has experienced their lives being basically “open books” much less shared with basically the whole internet world with their mom commenting on it.
The therapist part of me says that in the not too distant future this is going to pose a problem for today’s children especially when their lives have been the topic of a mommy blogger since they were born.
In particular, I would pay particular concern to those children, whose lives are basically being exploited by their own parents…by that, I mean that their family “business” or “dirty laundry” so to speak has been blogged to essentially any and all who choose to read it. It is like “Honey Boo Boo” without the cameras. In the not too distant future these kids will be able to read what has been said and commented on…what are they going to think?
I guess what I might do is ask everyone who blogs about their family to read their posts very carefully and ask themselves if it is something that they will want their children to read in the future. Will it follow them around like a big shadow that they simple cannot shed and will they resent you for it in the end.
Parenting carries with it a huge responsibility and keeping your child safe is something that should not be taken lightly…”15 seconds or really a life time of internet fame” …is it really worth it?
