Whoops! Bad Grandma!

My dgc are all over fb. I don't have any say, so I'm just going along with it!

My Dd puts pics of MY DGD on her Facebook site! I'm amazed! I don't think I would have done on Facebook?

jo I'm afraid that is exactly what you become as a pensioner. Regardless of how much you have paid into your superannuation/pension pot/NI your pension is seen as a hand out, money for old rope and naturally it's enough because "of course you don't have a mortgage to pay" - and who exactly paid that mortgage off???
You are not a source of experience or wisdom because everything is different - although to my way of thinking babies still have a head, 2 arms, 2 legs and another end out of which disproportionate amounts of poo etc issue. You are not allowed to be forgetful or busy when you are needed. A friend of mine who looks after an elderly aunt several counties away and is organising the wedding of the century in early September was told by her DD " Mum, you need to take it easy" and then promptly invited fiance, his parents and siblings to Sunday lunch chez said Mum!!
Oh I am not really complaining but it took a bit of getting used to!

Our local free weekly newspaper always has pages of photos from school events.
I was recently shocked/surprised to see a photo of my GS with whom I've been denied contact.I googled his name and found the photo and his name were on the website of local press.
I just wonder if parents are always aware that this can happen and if their permission is given for photos/names to be published.

I don't know if this will help anyone when determining whether to put photos of their family's children on places like Gransnet or Facebook, but here is the Copine deifinition of the lowest level of interest (level 1) that abusers who look for images will show interest in. Copine is the project developed by Professor Ethel Quayle at Cork University, together with the police and probation service, to define 6 levels of seriousness to aid prosecution regarding abusive images. These levels are used by judges. There's more information on Google:

Level One. Non-erotic and non-sexualised pictures showing children in their underwear, swimming costumes, etc. from either commercial sources or family albums; pictures of children playing in normal settings, in which the context or organisation of pictures by the collector indicates inappropriateness.

As you can see, it is anything that hints at their view of inappropriateness - underwear, swimming costumes. Clothed children hold no interest, except for rare cases where the offender knows the child and would have a collection of photos to build up with other photos.

My daughter made it clear at nursery that she wouldn't have a photo of her son used by them, so I would never dream of putting a photo of him on the internet. A friend of hers who is in a band so has a lot of Facebook followers realised that something untoward was happening with his son's photo's on Facebook and took them off straight away. Having said that, I'm sure there was a photo of my grandsons class at school in a local free newspaper a while ago which is a bit of a concern. I know when mine were little they used to print photos of the children and give their names; something that I felt slightly uneasy about at the time. It is sad, though, to have to worry about such things.

I did have photos up of my grandchildren but took them down a few weeks ago. I just had a bit of an uneasy feeling having them in view. My Facebook account (together with my DCs) have photos of the family, but to some extent they do have some privacy as we all restrict who can view them.

It is awful to think there are people out there who could take advantage of our photos. I can understand syberia why you felt so hurt, as a Grandma I'm obviously 'demoted' as it were from being a parent and I have to bite my tongue quite often and hold back opinions (not easy for me ), so try not to feel too badly, I'm sure your daughter didn't mean to upset you.

syberia there are ways of asserting your wishes, and perhaps you could have been updated about her views in a kinder way. I have one of those daughters who doesn't wrap anything up, and as I said to my sister, before she burst out laughing 'I can't imagine WHERE she gets it from!'

" The realisation that I was now a lesser mortal"

Gracesmum No you're flippin' not!!!!! You are the same person.

Years ago, I told that we were not allowed to take photos in the swimming pool as some council officials may be swimming with their friends!

I agree with Mishap. My GDs are gorgeous and I know DD has photos of them plastered all over her FB page, but if I wanted to show pics of them anywhere I'd ask her first.

When I took my camera to the local swimming pool to take some pictures of my GC swimming, I was politely told to put it away. What a shame that society has come to this.

I decided not to put any information about my grandchildren on the site. I am aware that when my DGC's primary school asked for permission to put photos of them on the school promotional video, my DS would not give it.
It is a shame that we have to behave like this, because, like the rest of you, I feel that I have very beautiful grandchildren and I want to show them off.
I have worked in child protection in the past and it does make you wary and I do agree with vampirequeen .
glassortwo I changed my name on GN because it was too easily recognisable. I hope that I have not written anything to upset my family but even so I would not want to feel that I am being spied on.

syberia dont do that! Sometimes I think that our DC like to mark the boundaries and put us in our place occasionally... grandparents not parents.

Gracesmum that is EXACTLY how I feel! I just wanted to shut down my account and crawl into a corner! And I am still in tears when I think about it.

I fell into this trap 2 years ago when as a proud first time granny I posted a 5 second video of DGS at 3 months playing on his playmat on facebook. The request to remove it ws polite but made me feel awful - I felt that I was a silly old woman who should not even be on facebook, I was out of touch with the modern awful online world, I was way down the pecking order especially in relation to GS and my judgement was at fault.
All of these were possibly true! But I had just retired from a responsible job with (some!) control of a large budget, people who listened to me and a position. The realisation that I was now a lesser mortal had me in tears for days. I left fb, practically stopped using my laptop, gave up emails and just hunkered down prepared to stay in the 19th century! (The fact that SIL's niece had posted a ahort clip of GS also seemed not to occasion any comment, so I smarted all the more)
I have emerged slowly and really feel for you. I felt slapped down and it hurt.The love we feel for our GC is such a strong one, but we are at one remove as we are not their parents. You can't win!

I've put no pics up for lots of reasons. Don't like the idea of the whole of the internet world getting at pics of my GC - there are some real weirdos out there. Proud grnadma or not, those pics are really best left off the net, and I guess it has to be their Mum's choice Syberia.

And if my pic was out there, then people could recognise me and it would mean I would have to curb my tongue when I feel like a rant!!

Now I feel a bit guilty but as my DiL plasters the children's photographs all over Facebook, I don't suppose my picture is doing any extra harm.

Sorry Syberia but I think your daughter is being very sensible. The child is hers first and foremost and this has been a gentle warning.

syberia my DD has never objected to me having the photo's of DGC on my profile. But I was very upset last year to be using her notebook while she was using my laptop for her dissertation and opened it up, it opened in Gransnet and she was registered! I have never said anything on here that I would not say to any of them but it was the fact that I was being spied on hurt enormously and felt my privacy had been invaded..... so I changed my password as it was well know with the family and now I know she cant actually access my profile and PM's.
By the way Violet is gorgeous.

Oh syberia - this is a tricky one. If your daughter doesn't want her child's photo up, then it's her call, regardless of how proud you are to show them off (it has been lovely to see Violet though). However, having a peek at what you're saying on here is not her call - so no wonder you're peeved at that. I would be!

Nice to see you on here again, by the way.

I was lucky in that my DIL reported her annoyance some years ago when friends put pics of GD on their Facebook pages. Forewarned. I don't think this is uncommon. But don't get upset. We live and learn.
These days I just follow the rule of not posting photos of anybody. Oh, except I did post a pic of my niece being a work of art, but she is not really recognisable.

We don't have photos of our children online. You never know who can copy and paste them and what use they might put them to.

From facebook someone could find out
the area the children live in
what the children look like
their ages
what school they go to if they wear school uniform in a photo
the children's names
the parent's names

If they're interested in the child they could also use that information to find out more from other documents that are readily available online.

It could be that your site is locked down to friends and family only but one of your friends could copy the photo and have an open page then the photo could be out into the www before you know it.

Don't think we're over protective parents. We encourage our children to explore and develop independence in the real world but the virtual world is something we police.

Maybe time for a name change Syberia !

At least I managed to update my photos ........... LOL