FTM here, how to get my mother to understand Facebook privacy re: the baby?
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Anonymous
| Does your mom not have privacy settings for her FB account? If so, what is the big deal? Her friends aren't "all of facebook". If not, then either go to her house (if local) and set it up so she does have privacy settings or ask her to do it. |
Anonymous
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Your mom was being a drama queen and a martyr. But you can't change her. You can only change yourself. (Says the grown woman who is in therapy in part to figure out how to relate to my mother now that I'm a mom and am coming into my own and our relationship has gone from pleasant to tense and incredibly frustrating.)
So here's what I would take away from that exchange: - Take it offline a LOT faster next time, or better yet, don't start it online. In person is no fun either, but it's way less problematic. It sounds like you know this, but work on making it happen in the moment. The "I'm getting back to work now" line could have come much earlier, along with "I'll give you a call [tonight] so we can talk about this." Just cut it off when it's going Hindenburg like that. - Learn to take deep breaths (literally) and RECOGNIZE as early as possible when it's going Hindenburg, so you can be aware of the situation and what's getting triggered in you and whether it's a good idea to keep up the conversation as it's going. - You have learned how to stand up for yourself and express yourself as best you can in a calm and open and rational way. (If you are like me, you have WORKED at this, and it's working for you, and it's incredibly frustrating that your mother is not willing or able to do the same.) But you can't make her have a calm and open and rational conversation with you. - Telling someone to "stop overreacting" has never worked in the history of humankind, as much as you and I both would LOVE it to. - It IS funny that you turned around and posted the exact quotes of your conversation. But I'm still on your side, ha! Seriously, if this is a big issue for you (and it sounds like it is), and you can manage to work a good therapist into your life, time- and money-wise, strongly consider it. Having kids REALLY complicated my relationship with my mother, which I wasn't expecting, but which I've learned is not uncommon. It will help a lot over the years if you work on mindfulness/awareness, communication, reasonable expectations, and setting boundaries. All that said, as for the specifics at hand: personally, I don't have a problem with my parents/relatives reposting photos or posting their own photos of my kids, because I don't think any real harm to my child can come of it. (Exceptions would be -- something where my child's name or specific location info like school or address was included -- something where my child was scantily clad post-infancy.) It helps that they almost never post anything on FB and also this is one issue to which my mom would be totally receptive. If I said, "hey, mom, would you mind taking that photo down, I'm nervous about it because DD is holding that artwork she's written her full name on" -- I'm confident she'd take it down. So thanks for at least making me feel grateful for that about my mom! Hang in there, OP. Becoming a mom is reeeeaaaaaaaally interesting (and ultimately good, in my experience) if you have an "immature" relationship with your own mom. |
Anonymous
| I'm shocked that so many folks seem to freely post pictures of their children on FB or online, generally. My toddler isn't old enough to consent to having an online persona, and I don't feel I have any right to make that choice--which will likely affect her for her whole life--for her. A group shot here, a random birthday party picture there, no way to control it. But I'm amazed the DCUM community doesn't have more respect for the privacy of our children. |
Anonymous
| I thought you can limit who can view your pictures, even with other's "sharing" it. By her reposting, do you mean she downloaded and uploaded it again? |
Anonymous
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Literally had almost the same exact conversation with my mom, however, I did not post any "belly" pictures of myself. What she did was scan a photocopy of my ultrasound that she asked for and I gave her. I didn't even post this on my own FB page and was annoyed because, like your mom, my mom's FB page is not private. We had a discussion and she was miffed at first but basically gets it. I taught her how to control her privacy settings and made her promise to take it easy. She basically does, which is unbelievable given the massive amounts of frustration involved getting there.
Another thing that bothered me about my mom was how much "ownership" she was taking over my kid's pictures and my pregnancy. She was posting weird details about me "she is not getting cervical checks so we don't know how long it will be but I bet she's dilated, the baby has already dropped" based on guesses she was taking of photos she saw of me! I was like W.T.F. mom, stop. My mom and I are not close, and have not been close since I was a really young child, and there are major issues between us related to things she allowed to happen while I was growing up. My childhood was a nightmare. However, she's come a long way and I really try to have a relationship even though I am still only comfortable at arm's length at best. Anyway, I think a HUGE part of the way she behaved so over-involved in my pregnancy, and as if she had the right to share that info, as well as my strong, negative reaction to it, was that it was like trying to bang a round peg into a square hole. We weren't close, so I resented her trying to pretend to all of facebook that it was this big special "my daughter is pregnant and we are experiencing it together" like we're so close. And of course, she just wants to be close to me. I can't really blame her, but I can't completely get there, so when she tries to fake it or force it on me, I withdraw or get resentful. (and yes, I've done therapy!). I ended up really cutting myself off from her for most of my pregnancy. I just really needed the space and for whatever reason, I felt like becoming a mom brought out all sorts of feelings I thought I'd adequately dealt with about how my mom basically stopped parenting me and allowed a ton of crazy bad stuff to happen to me, it just came back, even though she's apologized, turned her life around, etc. I think it was a combination of the introspection that naturally comes when you're trying to decide what kind of mother YOU want to be, and how to avoid going down the same path, that brings all of those things to the forefront. Especially because she tends to try to portray to all of her friends that we are so super close. I can't even begin to say the weird stuff this has entailed, posts on facebook would drive me nuts, she'd be posting stuff like "when I was a girlscout leader with ___, we just loved eating smores!" on a picture of someone else doing same with their kid. Except I was never a girl scout and she was CERTAINLY never a troup leader! Just insane. And then I think, does she think I don't see this? What if I called her out on this stuff? Wow, I've taken this thread for a detour. Sorry about that. But maybe some of this will speak to you. Here is my advice to resolve the issue overall. Put your own mom on limited access, and also put anyone who would reference your facebook to her on the same type of limited access. In other words, aunts, uncles, etc. Any pictures you post can be hidden from that group. I wouldn't go so far as to say that you don't post photos yourself, but if she can't see them, then she can't say "well you can post but I can't? And stay firm. |
Anonymous
Download picturees to Kodak Gallery (or similar site). Takes a couple of minutes. Read dcum while it's working. Click "order prints." Enter your mother's address (the next time, you'll just need to click it). How hard was that? I do this for my elderly aunt (my Mom is no longer living). You can't be bothered to do this for your mother? Self-centered much? |
Anonymous
+1. You should have a made a mental note to discuss rules about posting baby pics when you actually had pictures to post. I think neither of you is very good about the communication thing. FWIW, I also agree that, no matter what your "privacy" settings are, you're deluding yourself if you think anything on Facebook is private. |
Anonymous
what planet do you live on? |
Anonymous
| I am pretty sure everyone on her that is so psycho about fb privacy settings is 34 or older. Sure there will be some exceptions but I am 30 and no one I know acts like this. |
Anonymous
| My solution is simple. I have posted only 2 pictures of my children on the internet. If I don't post them, they don't get shared. |
Anonymous
| OP, if you aren't comfortable with people sharing your photos or even viewing them then you should consider quitting facebook. As you see, there are people you cannot control. That being said it is hypocritical to share photos that you wouldn't let other people share. So you need to decide whether you want to be on facebook or not and if you decide to stay you can't complain when others share you or your photos because that is the purpose of a social networking site. |
Anonymous
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From your 21:17 response, I would say that you should not include your mother in the Facebook group to whom you send photos.
You have bigger problems with your mother than just this one, and it seems that you have some hope of changing the situation. I think you are going to end up hurt, badly. You've already said this has been a lonely pregnancy. Don't expect from your mother what it sounds like she has never given you. I would invest in a few sessions of therapy before the baby gets here. |
Anonymous
Nope, late 20's here and my settings are set to private/friends only for everything. |
Anonymous
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OP,
The thing about Facebook is you cannot control what people do with your images. If you don't want anyone to share anything you post, don't post it. Facebook is a hybrid space, not perfectly private, not quite public. You're both being unreasonable! |
Anonymous
I am 34 and what you would probably deem "psycho" about my facebook privacy settings. However, I'm pretty much the only person in my group of friends who is like that, and some of them are older than me. I just don't get why anyone would make their settings anything other than "friends only" -- don't get the point. I own my own business and like to keep my personal life (boring as it may be) private, just out of principle. I can't think of a single reason why I would want to share the intricacies of my life with the whole world. Maybe you can enlighten me? I'm curious. |