When should you stop posting pictures of your children online?
Fiona Mcintosh knows how much trouble Gwynnie was in after she shared a selfie with her daughter…
It was one of those seminal life moments that would have been criminal not to record. The First Born was off to university on the other side of the country. I knew she wouldn’t pose for a cheesy photograph, so as she walked down the pathway towards her new life, I took a crafty snap on my iphone.
It was her back. You couldn’t see her face. Quite honestly, it could have been anyone. I then posted it on Facebook under the caption: “And she’s off… to Newcastle University, 300 miles away. Fresher’s Week. Triple shot vodkas for £3.50. What could possibly go wrong?”
Forty-five minutes later I received a volley of furious texts. “Take that cringe FB post down now!” “You know the rules. Don’t post!”
I had broken the sacred social media pact between mother and teenage daughter, requiring a total media blackout across all parental accounts. This rule is so draconian it also means both my daughters, Ruby 18, and Eadie, 16, have blocked me from their Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook accounts. It was only because I am a Facebook friend with one of Ruby’s friends that she had discovered my post – the “mole” had tipped her off.
So it was with a knowing smile that I read about Gwyneth Paltrow’s saga with her 14-year-old daughter Apple Martin. Mother and daughter were on a ski lift when Gwyneth took a cheeky selfie. In it Gwyneth is smiling, Apple is glowering (I know that look well) behind mirrored ski goggles.
When Gwyneth posted the photo on Instagram, Apple fired back: “Mom, we have discussed this. You may not post anything without my consent.” Gwyneth, clearly confused, fired back: “You can’t even see your face.”
Indeed. But it was comforting to see that even someone who had built a $250million lifestyle empire on the back of advice for modern women was still just as confused as the rest of us by teenage social media rules. For my generation, who grew up with a single household telephone as the sole means of communication with my friends, these ever-changing social media rules are mind-boggling. Worse, the rules appear to have been drafted by our digital native children for the sole purpose of excluding us from their secret lives. Sometimes it feels as though I am living in a fundamentalist regime with no access to The Truth.
When they were little, my girls were delighted to have their pictures shared on Facebook. Birthday parties, holidays and school sports days were all shared with impunity. But the moment they were old enough to have their own accounts, the control and rules shifted.
While it is fine, apparently, for Ruby and Eadie to liberally share pictures of themselves with their friends, my husband and I are not accorded the same human rights.
Occasionally, if they leave their Instagram account open on my laptop (well, it would be rude not to), I sneak a glimpse of a life hardly recognised: pouting, hipster kids awash with filtered light and faux nonchalance. I’m sure I’m not the only parent who has ever wondered who that Lolita in the crop top, micro shorts and a face full of Kardashian contouring is, only to suddenly realise it’s one of her own.
That is when I begin to understand the pressure they are under to maintain a wholly unrealistic social media presence. The last thing you want as an unformed adult is to have your mother “getting judgey” about the pictures they post.
My girls are also of the age that, from the moment they entered secondary school, the idea of privacy has been drummed into them relentlessly, warned of the horrors of internet grooming and the importance of shielding their accounts.
Maybe it’s no wonder that while on the one hand they record their lives ad infinitum, they also guard their privacy so ferociously – having learnt to create a secret world that excludes the prying eyes of all adults. Even their parents.
They are also acutely aware of the concept of consent, particularly as young women negotiating an increasingly feminist world. Excluded mothers can only applaud this attitude.
While parents like me dip in and out of social media, for our girls it’s their lifeblood. They rarely use Facebook – “it’s for old people like you” – and Instagram is clearly a faff with all that filtering. The go-to app for all teenagers now is Snapchat. Here they can share pictures and videos of funny moments, stupid faces and any random, passing thoughts. Snapchat posts expire as soon as they are seen and they are alerted if anyone takes a screenshot – considered socially unacceptable.
This way, Snapchat allows them to share unvarnished moments in their lives among their friends. They can pull faces and make throwaway comments in a relatively safe space that will never be found or judged by a future employer or partner. As a parent, I suppose I’d choose this disposable social sharing over the pressure and artifice of Instagram.
But it does leave parents like me with a sadness that we can’t share those rare moments in our teenagers’ lives when they actually make us proud.
That would be too cringe for words.