Why I Don’t Post My Kids’ Photos on Social Media (Even With a Private Account)
Last week I stood by the elementary school monkey bars waiting for my 7-year-old Mia to tie her sneakers after after-school care. Another mom from Mia’s class pulled out her phone, flipped to a photo of the kids covered in blue birthday cake from the weekend party, and turned to me. “Can I post this to my stories? It’s so cute,” she said. I told her I’d love a copy sent directly to me, but I’d rather she not post it anywhere online. She blinked, then said, “Oh, it’s totally fine, my account’s private. Only my friends see it.”
That exchange isn’t unusual, and I don’t blame her for asking. Five years ago, I would have said the same thing she did. When my oldest was born, I made a private Instagram account the day he was born, added all my family and close friends, and posted his first ultrasound, his first sponge bath, his first messy spaghetti dinner. I thought that was what new moms did, and a private account felt totally safe. Then a year later, I got a friend request from a woman I’d never met, who lived 20 minutes away. She messaged me saying she’d seen my post about my son’s persistent eczema in a closed mom group for local parents, and she wanted to share a cream that worked for her kid. I didn’t post it to that group. One of my followers, a woman I’d gone to high school with who was in the group, had screenshotted my post and shared it there without asking me.
That creeped me out, but it wasn’t the thing that made me decide to stop posting entirely. That came a couple years later, when Mia came home from second grade crying. A classmate had pulled up an old baby photo of another kid on her mom’s Instagram, where the kid was running around a backyard naked at a cookout, and the whole class was teasing her. That day, Mia asked me how many photos of her I had online. I told her none, and she sighed so hard her shoulders dropped and said “Good. Don’t ever put that picture of me throwing up at the ice cream shop online, okay? That’s so embarrassing.”
That’s the core of this choice, even when your account is locked down tight. It’s not just about keeping photos away from strangers. It’s about consent. Kids can’t give informed consent to have their entire childhood documented and shared online before they even know what social media is. By the time they’re old enough to care about their privacy and their reputation, every awkward phase, every embarrassing moment, every vulnerable meltdown is already out there, circulating among people their parents know, their classmates’ parents, their future teachers or employers.
A friend who works as a middle school counselor told me she talks to at least one kid a month who’s upset about photos their parents or other relatives posted online that are now being used to tease them. One 12-year-old she worked with had a mom who posted regularly about his anxiety meltdowns over homework, with jokes about how dramatic he was, and the photos got shared around his travel hockey team. He didn’t want to go to practice for three weeks. That’s the developmental piece people miss when they brush it off as a private account being safe. Kids grow into their sense of self and their boundaries, and they don’t get to undo the choices we make for them before they can speak up.
A lot of people push back and ask what I do about grandparents or other family that live far away and want to see new photos of the kids. It’s a fair question. My parents live 12 hours away, so I set up a password-protected shared Google Photo album three years ago. I add 10 or 15 photos a week, usually after outings or school events, and I only invite people who ask for access. If someone I don’t recognize asks to be added, I don’t approve it. If a family member stops being in our lives for whatever reason, I can remove their access in 10 seconds. It takes me two extra minutes a week to update, which is way less time than I used to spend writing captions and liking comments. It’s a low-friction swap that keeps everyone in the loop without putting photos out into the wider internet.
I have a simple, polite line I use when other people ask to post photos of my kids at events, which eliminates most awkwardness: “I love that you took that, it’s such a great shot! Can you send it to me? We don’t share my kids’ photos online, so I’d appreciate it if you keep this off your profiles.” Nine times out of 10, people say no problem, and that’s the end of it. I don’t make a big deal out of my choice, and I don’t judge other parents who choose to post their own kids. That works for their family, this works for ours.
People still say “it’s my private account, I only have people I know.” But how many of your followers have their own connections that can see shares or tags? How many of them belong to closed groups where they share other people’s posts to ask for advice or show off cute kids? Once you put a photo on any social media platform, the terms of service usually let the company use that content however they want, too. Even if no one shares it, it’s still stored on their servers forever. You can’t delete it fully.
Last month, my youngest took his first wobbly, grinning unassisted steps across the living room rug. I pulled out my phone, filmed the whole 10 seconds, sent it to my mom and my sister, and saved it to the shared album. I didn’t post it anywhere else. Right now, the choice to share that moment with anyone beyond the people we already invite into our lives is not mine to make. When my kids are old enough to have their own social media accounts, and they want to post their own baby photos, their own embarrassing childhood stories, their own art projects and soccer goals, I’ll hand over the whole album, all 20,000 photos, and they can do whatever they want with them. Until then, their childhood is theirs, not content for my feed. It’s that simple, and it’s working for us right now. I don’t know what will change in the future, but for now, this feels like the right call.
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