Posting pictures of sick kids on Facebook (vent)

MadAsh127

Why do people do this?  I'll never understand it.  The farthest things from my mind when my child is sick are my camera and Facebook.  Why do people insist on posting pictures of their kids while they're ill and updates that consist of "Little so-and-so is sick with a hacking cough and a fever of 104, we're on our way to the ER now".  Is it for attention?  I don't enjoy worrying my family, so I stay as far away from Facebook with any updates that might involve sickness or bringing my child to the hospital.  Maybe I'm one of the rare ones though...

 I get updating immediate family that might already be aware of the little one's illness, but this just seems like a step further than that.  An unnecessary step, at that.

Chelsey68

I vented about something similar to this not too long ago. I am sick of seeing the pictures of really sick kids that I don't even know saying like if you want them to get better. Or the ones that have pictures of there kids in coffins. And all the posts about how parents neglect there children and they end up drowning or something else horrible. Who wants to read about that? 

And if someone in my immediate family was in the hospital or sick I would expect a phone call or at least a personal text. I would be very upset if one of my brothers or sisters kids ended up in the hospital and I had to read about it on facebook. 

PotomacSt

LOL.... it's bad enough doing it with little kids, but my cousin's wife actually posted pictures of her 16-year-old asleep and with her face all swollen  after wisdom tooth surgery on Facebook. I would have killed her...

I also worry about posting health information online because these days, you never know where it's going to end up, and hitting 'delete' is no guarantee that it's actually going to be deleted. My understanding of Facebook's privacy policy is that they own anything you put up.

For example... I know a girl who's my age who was born with severe  genitourinary birth defects. Her mom championed the cause and started support listservs for other parents in the very early days of the internet, and used both her and her daughter's full names. Google didn't exist back then, I'm sure it felt anonymous. Now, some of the articles her mom wrote about her daughter are STILL floating around online, picked up by other random article-collection websites, and she can't get them to take them down. So now you can Google this girl's name and with a few clicks, find out all about her condition and reconstructive surgeries in detail   It's horrible. I plan to think long and hard about ANY information or pictures I post online about my child.

sda6485

OP, A "friend" of mine did this today on her FB and I thought THEE SAME EXACT THING! 

Why in the world do they take pictures of their sick kids and then post them?? This little boy looked sooooo sad today and all I wanted to do was jump through and hug him.  

Neshacouture

Yea I always post about that stuff I really hate it when they post kids in coffins or just a plain photo of the child saying that they died.. Chances are that child is alive and someone just posted something random its just a desperate act to get likes

elviebird

Kids in coffins?    Wha..?

ajs327

Ugh my mil does this all the time with her granddaughter...I hate it! She is always looking for attention, and a the expense of a 5 year old is disgusting!  This is one of the many reasons I hate my mil and never plan on letting her be alone with my child... Don't care if I'm being extreme she's inane and makes me insane!

 

JAP09-02

Ok, so I do have pictures of DD1 on facebook from one time she was sick.  In my defense, it was her first birthday, and I totally wasn't missing out of taking a picture of her on such a momentous day.  In the pictures she doesn't look that ill, despite spending most of the day vomiting. Plus I didn't post them immediately or anything, it was several weeks after. 

blueshamrock7

Neshacouture:

Yea I always post about that stuff I really hate it when they post kids in coffins or just a plain photo of the child saying that they died.. Chances are that child is alive and someone just posted something random its just a desperate act to get likes

WTF? 

 

MadAsh127

JAP09-02:

Ok, so I do have pictures of DD1 on facebook from one time she was sick.  In my defense, it was her first birthday, and I totally wasn't missing out of taking a picture of her on such a momentous day.  In the pictures she doesn't look that ill, despite spending most of the day vomiting. Plus I didn't post them immediately or anything, it was several weeks after. 

 

Well, your situation is different   Of course you're going to take pictures of your child on their birthday, that's a given!  I'm just referring to the parents who take pictures of their kids looking all sad and flushed, like this is even a memory they'd want to keep.  My parents never took pictures of me when I was sick, let alone post them for the world to see so the world could be sad about them too.  There were even other mothers taking pictures of their kids hooked up to machines while in the hospital bed/crib, and I feel like unless they're just born and that's the best you can take for a first picture of your baby, there's no need to take a picture of your infant/child laying in a hospital bed while they're ill. 

acupcakeforlindsey

I feel the exact same way.  There are so many girls I went to high school with on my facebook who are constantly posting sick photos of their babies/children.  I find it disgusting... and extremely sad.  I don't understand why taking a photo of a sick child and then putting it on the internet for the world to see is morally acceptable to most people.   [-(

bellelamb

Old thread never mind

littleredfish

Seriously? Why does this keep happening to us?

KelliHammond

Facebook automatically stores, forever, the facial recognition data of every photo that is posted on its web site -- even if that photo is later removed. in addition, Facebook was originally funded and incubated in part by In-Q-Tel, which is the CIA's venture capital arm. Facebook also stores and archives all data posted, forever, regardless if that information is changed or removed later on.

One should ask, why is the CIA involved in financially supporting a hugely successful web site that collects the myriad details of everyone's life, including the details of our children's lives? This includes data at the biological level, that is, facial recognition data.

Even if a name is not associated with a photo, the photo is biologically fingerprinted and this is for forever. There is no turning back the clock and changing anything.

I recommend not posting anything about your children online. Facebook is not for your pleasure. It is for collecting information about you and your activities, and everyone you know.

I work in the field of Big Data Business Intellligence, and I have also worked in the field of public relations (aka, legalized propaganda). Collecting large data sets on populations is in the best interest of governments that do not trust their own citizens. It is not in the best interest of the citizens who own and pay for those governments, however.