Blogging about my life and kids and travels has got me thinking: what are the boundaries for sharing personal information on the web? Then I came across this On Parenting blog on the topic that featured an interview with the STFU, Parents founder.
For those not familiar with STFU, Parents, it’s a blog site that mocks all the redonkulous birth, baby and kid posts that parents share with the world. In the interview, the site’s founder (who wants to remain anonymous), said the line between sharing and over-sharing has become fuzzy. The more people become familiar with social media, the less they think about what’s appropriate to put “out there.”
While it’s probably OK to post a video of your live birth on your personal blog, you may be crossing the line by posting it to Facebook, where your junior high school science teacher could stumble across it. Do you really want Mr. Milavec to see all that? As I write this I realize I may have been guilty of over-sharing in my daughter’s birth announcement, which included this photo:
I crossed the line with this picture of my kid. In my uterus. Sorry about that.
Yes, this is Avery at about 34 weeks gestation, inside my uterus! At the time, nobody was really sharing in-utero photos, but there I was, grossing out my co-workers and acquaintances when this picture landed in their in-box. After hearing through the grapevine that some people thought our birth announcement was “kinda weird,” I have tried hard to keep my Facebook shares under control. Fortunately, as I am not in possession of video footage of either c-section, breastfeeding b-roll, or photographic evidence of potty training success, I have found it easy to STFU about all that private stuff. Now, if only the rest of the parents out there would STFU too.
How about you? Have you ever over-shared parenting milestones on Facebook? Do your friends?
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