Thursday, October 15, 2015

I Overshare Pictures of my Kids, and I'm Proud of It! (Gasp)


You know I had to start this off with a photo. :)

I recently read from some other source, the backlash that oversharing parents get. People have told parents that their photos are boring, or they'll say things like "We don't CARE what your kid does. My kid has done that a million times."

And to that I say, "I don't care that you don't care. I DO. And, in my social media space, I will share what I please. To me, these are not boring moments. These are incredibly precious moments, even if billions of others have had similar ones. I am in no way implying that I love my children more than you do. It's just the way I process my experiences and express myself. It brings me joy to do so. So, you can choose to be a hater, and pick apart those who share a lot of photos. Or you could just say, "That mom really loves to photograph her kids", and leave it at that. Reserve your hatred for the true evils of the world.

If we're talking about Facebook, we can see that everyone has their "thing." I mean, some people don't post much at all. That's fine. Some people post tons of pictures of the food they eat. Fine. Others post every fitness accomplishment. Great. Even still, I find some that probably post as many memes, as I do photos of my children. I don't get my knickers in a knot because my feed is taken over by these memes. Some I'll read, and they might inspire me. Some, I'll just scroll past. Again, life is too short to get angry about people posting their passions to Facebook. Really, don't sweat the small stuff.

Furthermore, as long as I respect the integrity of the child, I do not believe that photos of children will be harmful. I do not believe that posting photos of children will make predators more likely get them. Supervision is key here. (duh)  Obviously, it is prudent not to post pictures of children in the bath, on the potty, or unclothed, but that is irrelevant, in my case at least. (Oh wait, I do have a couple of bath photos of my kids when they were under 2. But only their upper halves, so I don't think that will doom them forever. I'll just have to hold my breath on that one.)

I do not believe that posting photos will make them more likely to be bullied in years to come. ("Johnny, you are such a loser to have ridden that trike when you were 3.") I'm sure people will find more hard and fast reasons to bully my kids, if they had it in their mind to do so.

Finally, I don't believe posting photos of children in some way robs kids of their identity. I see that as people trying to make us fear yet another thing, and we all know there's far too much of that these days!

I am an oversharing parent. I am a lover of photography (always have been - ask people who knew me BEFORE I had kids.) I am, in my own opinion, an artist. I want to scream from the rooftops how beautiful life is with these children in it. If that makes others question the strength of my ego or my need for attention, so be it.

I would like to finish by admitting that I have not even been attacked for being an oversharer. But since I deem myself to be one, I feel highly motivated to stick up for us group of underdogs. Some of us are just loving life, and want to share it with the world!

So, here's a toast to the photo oversharers of the world (there are so many different niches to oversharing that I have to be specific.) We are here to stay! If you don't like us, don't follow or friend us!

And please do not consider this to be a seriously defensive post. I'm just having fun with this! I leave you with a photo. :)


2 comments:

  1. I only just recently found your blog and I love it! I'm also a hdcp in Toronto and a huge over sharer of photos of my own kids. Lol solidarity

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