friendship

Help! Is it normal that... my friend shares pictures of my kids?

Can you help this iVillager out with another tricky dilemma:

I feel silly even writing this, because I’m so unsure if I’m overreacting, but something one of my friends is doing is making me really uncomfortable.

I have lots of friends from my first mothers’ group and a few of us are really close. We meet up every week for playdates and coffee and we babysit for each other.

Lately I’ve gone back to work two days a week and one of my mothers’ group friends has my two kids for one afternoon, as our daycare fell through for that day. It’s a big favour, but she seems to enjoy it and the kids all play well together.

But the last two afternoons she’s had them, she’s posted pictures of them onto her Facebook and Instagram accounts. They’re not doing anything particularly bad in the pictures, but personally I’m quite careful about sharing pictures online, and my husband is very private about it. They’re pictures I would never choose to post myself.

I can’t explain why it makes me so uncomfortable, almost like she’s taking this ownership of my kids, but it does.

Am I being totally unreasonable if I ask her not to do it any more?

What do you think? Do you and your friends post pictures of each other’s kids online without asking?