They say it takes a village to raise a child, and for many lucky families, that includes the involvement of wise, experienced, and loving grandparents.
But what happens when the grandies go rogue when they are unsupervised with the kids? They can buy unnecessary, expensive toys, allow the kids to stock up on sugary treats, and indulge them in enough screen time to earn them the title of Best Grandparent Ever.
Side note… Julia Roberts, Michelle Obama and many other celebrities share their thoughts on parenting. Post continues below.
Fair enough. That’s part of grandparenting, right?
But recently, another problem has been emerging: Grandsharenting. It’s the term used to describe when grandparents post pictures of their grandkids on social media, often without anyone’s consent.
It sounds innocent enough, and a move generally motivated by love and pride, which is why it’s not an issue to some. But it is problematic in many families, especially in the lead up to Christmas.
Some parents feel grandparents don’t have a right to share photos of their kids without asking – that they are not entitled to do so – and that their views on privacy and control over their child’s image are not respected.
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Naomi, why do your son and his friends have Facebook at age 11?
Cause he’s 11, therefore able to use it.
Facebook's minimum age is 13.
Too many parents are unable to say no to their kids and stick to it.
And MA movies are 15+ but plenty of us watched them at 11 and survived.
I support those parents who place a blanket ban on putting their children on the internet - everyone should be doing this, frankly. However, people need to be more proactive in telling others their wishes and setting clear and stated ground rules, rather than not saying anything then getting annoyed when others step out of line. Asking friends and family to NOT post or share pics of a newborn baby, for instance, would be wise, instead of expecting them all to read your mind or not get caught up in the excitement of the event.
It's also a little difficult when parents break the rules themselves. Kids can't be "half private" on the internet - once the genie is out of the bottle, it's out. As such, parents who share stuff themselves but then get upset about "privacy" when others do similar things have set pretty fuzzy boundaries. Better to just keep kids off the net altogether.
Of course kids can be half private. There’s a huge difference between posting that your child has been born to a limited number of people and putting their passport photo on a public account. The difference is common sense and curation.
That's not what I meant. Many parents curate pics (so don't show identifying or inappropriate things like school uniforms, nudity etc), but still post semi- or entirely publicly.
Privacy, whether it be half or not is an oxymoron when it comes to social media. Those 'limited number of people' can easily share the post with the world should they choose to do so.
Okay so what you meant was that these parents are keeping their kids details private? That’s not really a ‘fuzzy boundary’.