Grandparents Oversharing on Facebook

RomanoPartyof4

Sorry - this is long!

I am really hoping someone will have some advice or insight into this. My mother in law in very active on Facebook, and obviously very proud to show off my daughter, her first grandchild. I'm pretty private, so this is something I had a lot of anxiety about while pregnant, but never approached her about it and decided to let it go before my daughter was born. Now 10 months later, I am incredibly uncomfortable with the amount and type of photos my mother in law is sharing. I post one maybe two photos a week of my daughter, if that, and the photos I post are pretty basic. Just a sweet family photo of my husband, daughter, and I, or a photo of my daughter sitting or smiling. I still sometimes feel like this is a lot to share, but my family and friends really enjoy keeping up. Well for every one or two pictures I post, my MIL will post a whole album including 5-15 photos of my daughter almost every time we see her. Most of these pictures are not flattering, sometimes blurry, and usually very personal. She has posted photos of my daughter in just a diaper, photos showing the entire inside of my home in the background, and many photos I never even realized she had taken. I don't mind sharing a glimpse into our lives, but I prefer to keep the private moments private and to enjoy my daughter's childhood in person, instead of through facebook. My MIL also frequently shares videos of my daughter, which I rarely feel comfortable doing myself. Lastly, my MIL is hardly present when we are together because she is so caught up in taking pictures and posting to facebook. The tipping point for my husband and I was yesterday, while we spent the whole day with them. She videod my daughter while she was trying to play, and she had the flash light on the entire time. After my father-in-law, husband, and brother-in-law asked her to turn it off, she finally stopped videoing. Not 30 minutes later, while we were watching a movie, she came up to my daughter on our laps and started videoing with the flash on not even 12 inches from her face. I was so shocked and didn't know what to say, but after about a minute of videoing, my husband (who was blinded by the light) and brother-in-law told her to turn it off, she finally did after a few more seconds. And obviously, this video is now on facebook for everyone to see!

Anyways sorry for the long post, maybe this is a bit of a vent, but I'm not sure how to approach this! She is incredibly sensitive, and I don't want to cause any bad blood, but I am feeling pretty uncomfortable and exposed. I am just hoping someone will have some advice on how to approach this or maybe can tell me to just get over it!

Thank you in advance, 
Kelsey!

chaser61

We don't like to cause bad blood either but this is something we addressed immediately with MIL. The older generation just doesn't get it. We told MiL that she has to ask permission before she posts. She pitched a fit and told us that we were telling her how to run her life. She stopped talking to me for two months. But when we had the baby, she got over it because she wanted to see LO. It worked though. Nothing gets posted unless we say it is ok. There are other things she does that are annoying but we pick our battles. Good luck!

missliz53

I think the first thing that you and your DH need to do is sit down and decide between the two of you what types, and amounts of pictures and videos you are comfortable with people posting, and the privacy settings you are ok with. It's important for all family to have the same boundaries, especially with grandparents, because it's not fair if your mom can put up 50 photos of LO in a diaper, but MIL can only post 3 photos and LO has to be fully clothed. Also would you be ok with your MIL posting more photos if she set up a group of just her very close friends and family and only posted to there? As parents, you guys get to make the rules. Have your DH talk to her and tell her the guidelines you came up with and if she violates them, have him send her a text or call her and ask her to take them down. If she doesn't comply, have him warn her that he will have Facebook take them down, and yes, Facebook will remove photos of kids under 13; the place to report them is a little tricky to find, it's hidden in the help manual not the report this picture link. 

I had to do this last weekend with my brother of all people. DH and I decided we don't want any public photos, including profile pics on Facebook and he put a picture of heras his profile pic and then refused to take it down and actually got pretty nasty about it. He started calling me a control freak and a helicopter parent among other things and I've explained to him why we don't want public photos of her going around Facebook and God only knows where else. Anyways, I reported the photo to Facebook and they took it down and I assume he got a warning because I got some more mean texts from him the next day. So we aren't talking at the moment. 

lap018

I feel you, my mil is the same way. My husband has made it very clear to her that she is not to post every aspect of our lives on Facebook. We just recently moved and she put up a pic of our new house??!? And she had a pic of my son in the bathtub! I was just like are you freaking kidding me. She also lies and tells my husband that she only posts pics that I approve. (Bull shit she never asks me about any pictures she puts on Facebook) I just tell her exactly what I think, I don't care if she gets mad. This is my son and it is my job to keep him safe and keep our lives private. If she doesn't like then it's her loss, it's her loss to miss out on time with her own son and grandson if she chooses to get mad and stop talking/seeing us. Just make it very clear (in a concerned polite way if that works for your mil, mine only understands and complies with brute force) that you would like only minimal amount of photos of YOUR little one. You need to start setting boundaries now or she will just do whatever she wants all the time. 

RomanoPartyof4

I really appreciate your responses! You are each so right on about needing to draw the line to protect our LOs. I am sorry to hear each of your frustrating stories and hate something so trivial as social media can cause such problems with close family members! It's a shame so many of us deal with this but reassuring to know what I am feeling is normal. Looks like a conversation is definitely in order between my husband and MIL.

LoveLee85

Okay. I can 150% relate to this. I don't even have a Facebook account and deal with this crap nonstop. My INLAWS are King & Queen Facebook. Literally obsessed. Also, none of their albums are friends only or private. All open for any creep to see. My MIL is very careful about what she posts because I blew up when I was pregnant on them for their over share of my pregnant self and details of our lives. They ALWAYS take pictures with so much of our personal stuff in the background...I had to speak up. They have posted pictures of our house and house number in the photo. I know anyone can google us and get our address, BUT don't make it easier than it has to be. Make someone search for it if they want to know where we live!!! Ugh. I handled it wrong I'm sure but it got my point across. I just said I'm uncomfortable with my life details on display for everyone in the world to see and that it wasn't her place to post it. They get pissy but they try to go with it. They still post pictures of our son on there without asking(one of my BIGGEST issues). I don't want him to be all over the Internet. Most older people don't understand how dangerous it is to expose babies and small children on social media. They don't get just how many people have access to something that isn't private!!! Like thanks for telling a child molester my son, his room, the inside of our home, and our house address....!!??  

Speak up up or it will never stop. You and DH need to be firm and stand your ground ASAP. Good luck. Hugs!!!!! 

chaser61

One more thing to add, I added MIL and her family to the acquaintance list. I select "friends minus acquaintances" most of the time when I post so she thinks I only post once a month. I only post about once a week or once every two weeks anyway. It might sound trivial but she doesn't seem to want to post as much because I am showing her that I don't post a lot. It also stops her from seeing what other people post of me and LO. She got mad because "other people were allowed to post stuff" and didn't listen when I said they asked permission and it only happened a couple of times. Once you do that though, you do have to pull up her page to see what she is posting because you will no longer see it in your newsfeed...at least I couldn't anyway. I think cutting her out on some info and photos has helped.

wannabeamongoose

We are super cautious/paranoid about Facebook after one of MIL's patients accessed a Facebook album that we thought was private and posted a public YouTube video of all our pictures. It was super creepy because we had never met the guy. For some reason MIL didn't see a problem. YouTube was completely not helpful, but maybe it would have been different if a minor had been involved. We fought for months to remove the video. Even when you think things are private on Facebook, they generally aren't. In our case we had made the photos private but after several iterations of policy changes they were no longer protected the way we had originally set them to be.

We use a photo and video sharing app that allows us to control who is invited to see photos and videos. We've invited all the family and friends that we want to have access to personal images. We explained family and friends why it was important to us that baby not have a social media presence and told them that if we ever see images of our child on social media we will ask them to remove it (or have it removed if we have to). We acknowledged that they want to share and brag, so we give them all full rights to post and comment, but we maintain control over who gets to participate. Obviously people can still violate our wishes, but so far it's been successful for us in giving family an outlet for posting images that is much more controlled than Facebook. 

LoveLee85

How crazy is this: my DH was at the local market and actually recognized a little boy BECAUSE his image is always plastered all over Facebook. He knew his name, age, etc. He was like I feel weird knowing all of this but his family posts everything on Facebook and I'm friends with a cousin who shares it all. I was like THIS IS WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT!!!!! Scary!!!!! 

missliz53

I'm always amazed at how many people post super personal stuff or pictures of their kids public on Facebook. The odds are pretty good that at least one if your Facebook friends has some questionable friends, and all that friend has to do is like your public photo and it will show up in all of their friends newsfeeds.

I tried to use a garage door analogy. You wouldn't leave your garage door open all night long or when you aren't around with your bikes and your new lawn mower inside even if you live in a nice neighborhood because someone might come by and while that person may have no intention of breaking into your garage, an open garage door with some nice things in it might be too tempting to pass up. 

My brother has a couple friends who are cops and I told him to ask them if I'm being paranoid and unreasonable. He said he's going to, but I guarentee that I'm never going to hear the results of that because I'm pretty sure they will agree with me. 

rachelkawesome

We have struggled with this SO MUCH that I don't even want to get into the craziness haha. We have become really strict with everyone because my FIL has consistently pushed our boundaries with it again and again. And unfortunately my husband's family's culture is very into photos and not into privacy, so I've had to contact near strangers to get them to take pictures of my son down. Sigh. If talking to them doesn't work, I've resorted to commenting on the photos themselves saying to please take them down. Public humiliation usually works

BabyBugutsky

I feel the same way you do. I hate how many photos my mother in law and sister in law take of my little guy. I didn't like that every picture we sent them was being posted online. It made me really upset and after talking to my hubby (who doesn't think it's a big deal at all and told me I was being silly) I texted his mom about it. It caused a fight and she stopped talking to me but we are fine now and she doesn't post anything anymore. I explained why it made ne so upset and she was fine. If you feel strongly about it you need to talk to them.  It won't get better until you do.

wimamaof2

N15 lurker...
I had the same issue with my sister.  She posted 5 pics of LO in instagram in less than 1 hour (DH and I don't have instagram).   I was mortified!  I sent a message to my immediate family and told them that DH and I don't want pictures of LO on Facebook without our approval and zero pics on Instagram.  Also, their fb has to be private.  
I also added a news article regarding #babyrp.  These are about creeps going into people's profiles, stealing the kid's pictures, and role playing pretending they are their kids.  I was disgusted when I read the article.

mrsmctaggart6

My mother is the only problem in my family and we had to give her a zero pics on fb unless it's restricted to family and close friends and the only reason I have one is to go on every once in a while and make sure she is following orders... My SIL is also spying for me, lol

amp61470

I had to tell my SIL not to post pictures of my son on Instagram, I was told by my other SIL that she had been posting them. Her account is public and she has 3000 followers. I told her there was no reason for her to post them there and that it made me extremely uncomfortable. 
Facebook doesn't bother me nearly as much but my account is very private. 

TabulaRasa25

FB doesn't bother me,  as both my husband and myself keep our pages pretty locked down and have pretty curated friend lists.  My husband never used social media before our son was born,  but now he's a big sharer  of pics.  No problem, given the relative privacy of our accounts. We don't use any other social media,  and our relatives respect that.  I have a teen SIL, my m husband's 25-year younger half sister,  and she knows that baby pics don't go on her instagram or snapchat. She doesn't use Facebook,  because,  and I quote,  "That's what old people use."

tlc11934

No one has ever asked me if it was ok to post a pic of my kids and it doesn't bother me.  None of the grandparents have social media but my friends post all the time.  

It's your kid, so if you're telling them not to they should respect you.  If they don't, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it.

rachelkawesome

tlc11934 said:

No one has ever asked me if it was ok to post a pic of my kids and it doesn't bother me.  None of the grandparents have social media but my friends post all the time.  

It's your kid, so if you're telling them not to they should respect you.  If they don't, I'm not sure there's much you can do about it.

Well, we actually told my FIL we would limit his access to digital photos and not be allowed to take any pictures of our son if he kept posting pictures without asking. The next step would have been limiting our visits with him. That may seem extreme, but there are things you can do if it bothers you enough. 

FatPony

I just googled #babyrp ...... That is seriously effed up. Thank goodness I'm old and don't have Instagram. And thank goodness i don't have many Fb friends, lol

ItsmeR30

^^ lol "I'm old and don't have Instagram". That's how I feel. 

I remember myspace... Ahhh... MySpace...