[This article was first published on Shrink Tank in July 2015]
Have you ever wished there was a required etiquette class for all social media users? Rules of social engagement can be blurry enough in everyday life, but add this to the lack of boundaries online and we have fertile ground for lots of missteps. The misstep I’d like to present has to do with a parent’s responsibility to protect the privacy of their child and more specifically, the question I’m asking lately is “What is healthy and appropriate when it comes to parents posting pictures of their ill and suffering children online?”
For anyone who has a friend on their newsfeed that seems to post pictures like this a lot, perhaps with a chronically ill child or one who has recently undergone a major physical stressor, you’ve likely experienced how distressing it is to see a helpfulness child suffer and felt a sense of compassion for them and their parent who is clearly experiencing heartache.
On the positive side, we know that parents, like kids, need support from their respective communities because parenting is hard work. It makes good sense to tell those we are close to about the daily ups and downs because family and friends can offer some of the best medicine of encouragement and even practical help when we are in need.
But… Could there be such a thing as too much information? We might be so bold to tell others that we are suffering from a skin rash but that doesn’t mean we should disrobe to show just how far it’s spread!
So while we have to consider and respect others’ comfort levels with our intimate ailments, we have another more pressing concern: the dignity and privacy of the child we post about. It’s easy to catch ourselves saying things like “My child,” but does that give us the right to share every detail of their intimate little lives with every person we see fit? Where does the child’s privacy come in?
For those of us with a sick child, we have a duty to care but we also have a duty to “do no harm.” Most of us wouldn’t want someone to take and post a picture of us when we look and feel our worst. And we certainly wouldn’t want someone we love to pull out their phone rather than a tissue when our face is covered in mucus. For this reason, it’s worth asking ourselves a couple brief but key questions about whether to post, or not to post.
A simple starter is “Who is this for?” Is posting a picture of your disheveled child in a hospital bed helpful to them? Friends or family? Or is it for you, the parent? What’s more, we should be asking: “Is there any associated cost to the child or the community” Such as an invasion of their present or future privacy and right to anonymity? If the answer to the first question is “Yes, it’s primarily for me,” and for the second question “Yes, there is a cost to others,” then it’s likely a personal need that needs to find a better, less harmful outlet.
It goes without saying that these are complicated issues which rarely have simple answers. It’s very easy to be entangled with the identity of our child and our identity as parents. Because the line between what is good for the child and what is good for the parent is quite often blurry, we need to be all the more mindful of this topic and proceed with caution. The more we are able to define these ethical standards, the more capable we will be in caring for those we love while they are in need.
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