A
age
51-59,
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writes: Good evening everyone,I have a friend on Facebook - I do know her in the "real" world - who is posting endless photos of her children. Her little girl is maybe 5 or 6 years now and her new baby boy is under 1 year. I find it very odd that she seems to feel the need to share every tiny little thing that they do, what they eat, how much toys cost, how much poo she has had to clean up, how poo accidents happen etc... there doesn't seem to be a single thing which she seems able to keep private! I find it quite bizarre and know if I had children I would be keeping all this private and only sharing a few things with others.What I also find disturbing is how she shares some personal things about her husband, making jibes at him about how he is losing his hair etc etc and yet her husband's page is very much the opposite. Does anyone else fail to comprehend why people do this and think there's something not quite right about it?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 April 2014): I try not to post pictures of my grown daughter unless she is with me or my husband on her pictures.
I also think its ridiculous in what access people do it. They need to remember that their children might interest only them in that quantity and no one else, even close friends.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 April 2014): That can also be applied when grandparents post endless pictures of the grandkids. It gets so redundant and boring as heck. I like the pictures just to be nice, but I do get tired of the constant kiddie pictures. One cousin had a baby a month ago and every single day she posts tons of pictures of the baby. I am thinking of blocking their feeds as well.
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male
reader, anonymous, writes (7 April 2014): I don't bother with Facebook. Not worth the hassle.
If you have to share photos, do it over email, at least you have control over it, and there's better filtering systems compared to social media.
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female
reader, celtic_tiger +, writes (7 April 2014):
I sort of understand what you mean.
I am at the age now where a lot of my peers, friends from school and work colleagues are getting married and having babies. I am getting sick of it! No day goes past without photos of chickenpox, what they did, photos of them eating, puking and just really mundane boring stuff.
Now, I admit I am not the most maternal person in the world, and babies hold no interest for me at all. I just do not understand the fascination. Before facebook it was limited to one at a time, now you have every single new mother you know doing exactly the same thing, posting exactly the same news all at once. It's reached saturation point! (and does not make me want to have a baby any time soon!)
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 April 2014): My cousin does it and I think that there are two reasons people do it:
- pride (I don't mind that, as long as it's not arrogant)
- projection (like Honeypie's niece who projects a motherhood lifestyle that she doesn't have)
My cousin does both, but more pride. She loves her little man a lot and his dad's side of the family lives in another country, so it helps that they can see his progress (as well as for family like me who can't visit as often as we'd like to) but the dad has threatened breaking up 4 or 5 times since their son's birth which was only something like 9 months ago - all because he's "not ready" for the commitment, so I presume some of it is to try to portray a solid family life and it's not. Admittedly, she hasn't done anything wrong, but it's still a bit of projecting a more stable life than she has.
I don't think you can really know what you'd share until/unless you have children because it's often a pride and love you've never experienced before and can make you want to burst (at least when they're too young to do really naughty things). Then again, some people really are just super private people, and that's okay too.
Her husband would leave her if he was really upset/fed up of her jibes.
I can understand you "failing to comprehend" why people do it, but I don't think you should judge if it's right or wrong just because you don't think you'd do it.
If you don't like it, you'll have to hide her feed, like Honeypie said. Unless you do actually want to unfriendly and block her?
Aunt Westie
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female
reader, Sensible Alice +, writes (6 April 2014):
For some people FB is the only way you can share what is going on in your life. Unfortunately, FB is not only made up of our relatives, and the posts get seen by all our friends, close and not so close. I can understand your concern, as I've heard similar stories of people sharing too much on FB, and quite silly things so that one wonders if they even realize how people may perceive them. If you are not a close friend to this woman, could you unfriend her? Is it really worth the aggravation her posts cause you? If she asks why you unfriended her (hopefully she won't even notice)just say you've been inundated by so many friend's notifications that you have decided to cull your friends list and keep only people close to you and that you haven't done it to offend her and you'd still like to catch up with her now and then.
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (6 April 2014): I agree OP. My Facebook is full of people who post EVERYTHING their kids do & my news feed is FULL of pictures of their kids eating, sleeping, in their nappy, on the sofa poorly... I could go on! I actually had to block 1 of my friends's posts as she posted about 12 times a day about her kids.
I do understand people can post what they want on their Facebook but it does become boring. Also 1 of my friends puts pictures of her daughters, in the bath, you can't "see" too much but I feel it's stupid to post pictures like that. I call these people "baby bores'' as the clearly having NOTHING else going on on their lives other than their kids!
Just "hide" their post & never comment or like what they post. They may stop posting 1 day... Here's hoping :-)
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (6 April 2014): From somebody who has no children (and will be highly unlikely to have any) I take great vicarious joy and pleasure from watching the children of those I love I grow and develop,
Since I can't be there in person for these little ones every step of development, I love having updates on their first steps, first words, first shit in the potty etc.
So just spare a thought for us aunties who would otherwise not get to see these milestones until weeks after they'd happened
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reader, anonymous, writes (6 April 2014): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionLol, Honeypie good point. She just posted several pictures of her daughter stark naked now. I hope she stops before she gets any older!!
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female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (6 April 2014):
Hide her feeds?
She is entitled to do/say whatever she likes on Facebook. YOU have the choice to ignore it or block her feeds/status. Or ignore it all together. Does it matter what SHE does? To you?
Personally, I think people who do (post excessively) are trying to make themselves look better then they really are. Some moms are "almost" competing with friends/other mom is just how "advanced" their progeny is and it's ridiculous. However, if she is a SAHM maybe this is her only outlet to other adults. I know SOME parents over-share. I have a niece who post ENDLESS stuff about being a great mom. Considering that she had her kids taken away, doesn't have a job, or a home and is now pregnant (*facepalm*) those who are around her KNOW what she post is PURE fiction. She doesn't get up with her kids, make then lunch, practice homework, help them with whatever problem/issue they have, she is in ACTUALITY more busy on her phone posting all this *I win at being supermom* crap instead of raising her kids. She is in serious denial.
My husband hides her feeds because they are just to ridiculous.
If her page offends you, YOU can always un-friend/block/delete and IGNORE it. I'm pretty sure you are not the Facebook Police.
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