Last year, I was walking into a nail salon on a very average day with my daughter in tow when a very sweet woman I didn’t know walked up to both of us. Instead of greeting me, she began talking to Coco. She was very kind, but I noticed Coco’s immediate reaction was to look up at me as if to say, “Who is this and why do they know who I am?” Her discomfort in that moment was the final straw I needed. I walked away from the nail salon that day realizing that the inklings I had previously were fully clear now: I knew I wanted to stop sharing my kids’ faces on social media.
My Mindset on Social Media
When I first joined Instagram, I didn’t think twice about what I was posting or really who was seeing it. Being recognized from social media back then wasn’t really a thing, and the way we understood online identity was totally different. Like many people, I became accustomed to sharing a lot of my life online. When I launched my photography business, it’s how I gained momentum, clients, and new branches of my business. When I experienced my first miscarriage, I wanted to share my heart and story with my followers. The more I saw other people getting vulnerable online, the more I found myself wanting to do it, too.
So, eventually, when my first daughter Coco came into the world, I wanted to share that part of our story. I desperately wanted to open up the conversation around pregnancy loss and miscarriage, since I personally struggled to find accessible, safe communities to do that in. And I wanted to celebrate the joy of being a parent after wondering if I ever would get to become one. It felt natural and easy, especially as a photographer and documentarian of my life, but I wasn’t fully aware yet of what would eventually become an important boundary for me and for my kids.
In the early days, I knew that if I was going to share images of the kids attached to anything business-related, like a paid partnership post or campaign, it would only be with partners and brands that made total sense for us (me and the brand) and for them (my kids). Drew and I also decided to set aside every dime earned for their futures and put it all in savings accounts for them. If they would be the faces of a sponsorship, then they deserved to get the full benefit of that!
Related: The Secret to Staying Present While Sharing Your Life Online
Shifting My Content Strategy
As Coco started to get older and we were in public more, we started to realize that the kids would inevitably get recognized in public more and more. I didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable or ‘known’ without their consent. Everyone was truly always kind, but that didn’t matter to the girls. A stranger is a stranger! Around the same time, I also began to see other parents online remove their own kids from their social media pages. In the back of my mind, I thought, “That seems right, but how do I remove such an important part of my life from this visual space where I share so much of it?”
I went back and forth contemplating it for a while. I knew that shared images on social media don’t necessarily stay on social media. And that sent a chill up my spine. Seeking a sounding board, I reached out to another influencer who had previously removed her kids’ faces from her content after prominently featuring them for years. I remember how she said, “If someday [my kids] could be hurt, mad, or confused as to why I did it, I don’t want to take that risk.” The world is already hard enough on kids; having their lives blasted online can make it even harder.
It was Mother’s Day 2023 when I decided to finally try and ‘experiment’ not showing their faces online for 30 days. I wanted to try it without explaining myself to my followers and to see how it felt. I flexed my photographer’s muscles and transformed how I captured content every day. One image of just the girls walking away from me. One image of me cleaning up their toys rather than them at play. My feed slowly started to shift, but the fear of change was alleviated almost instantly.
Slowly I started to see not only how easy it could be to no longer share their faces, but how much better I felt keeping them safe! In fact, it challenged me to get even more comfortable with sharing just me again! (And maybe pulling Drew in for more photos together, too.) And I was truly shocked when not one person asked me about the shift in my content over those 30 days. Since that Mother’s Day experiment, I’ve never looked back!
What’s Next for Our Kids Online
If I could go back, I would likely do things very differently, but I can’t. The internet has a sort of permanence to it that I have to accept. I’m grateful for the archive button, the delete button, and the ability to learn from my mistakes. After all, it’s better to change now than never change at all. I am so glad I took the step to make this shift!
I’ve attempted to wipe my girls’ identities from the internet as much as possible while still honoring the fact that they are part of my family and my story. Much like this post, I’ve learned there is difference between talking about my parenting journey and my lessons along the way and sharing my girls’ lives without their consent.
I now text my friends photos of my kids instead of posting them online. To put it simply, if you don’t have my number, you don’t need to see my children. What was surprising to me was the shift that happened for my kids in public spaces. I knew that I would still be recognized, so I assumed that it was a little too late for them in that department. That wasn’t the case at all! It was as if removing their faces from my feed also removed that permission I was inadvertently granting to strangers to know and interact with them too. This gives me and Drew so much peace, especially with her being in school now!
My girls also know they’re not performing for my camera. Everything we capture is so free and uncurated, simply for our joy and memories. There’s zero pressure, and we have so much more fun together when I pull out my phone or camera. Truthfully, I find myself pulling my phone out WAY less often, which is also a win for me!
I still want to show my journey of motherhood online. That’s not going anywhere anytime soon. Becoming a mom has changed my entire life, but I will be sharing it through my lens and story, not theirs. Their stories are for them to tell should they so choose.
Want to read more of my story?
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