Social Media Privacy Begins at Home

In the New York Times article We Want Privacy but Can't Stop Sharing, Kate Murphy writes, "The problem is that if you reveal everything about yourself or it's discoverable with a Google search, you may be diminished in your capacity for intimacy" because relationships develop through gradual and mutual self-disclosure of increasingly private and sensitive personal information.
Murphy notes that due to the data mining of social media by advertisers, many users have become more circumspect about how much they share online, and this may inadvertently help social relationships.
But how about children whose parents share moments as personal as an ultrasound image of a fetus captioned "We're having a boy!" or "We're having a girl!" Or share a story or photo of a toddler using a potty seat? Then there are the temper tantrums, bad haircuts, first periods, first dates, and more.
Do Children Have a Right to Privacy?
For many parents, the urge to share news in their lives has usurped their children's rights to privacy and control over which stories to share with friends and future romantic partners.
Many of my fellow sexuality educators cheered when a blogger wrote about teaching her daughter that masturbation is a private, rather than public activity. I wasn't cheering; in fact, I was angry.
Yes, parents should teach their children that masturbation is a healthy, normal feel-good activity. And yes, parents need to teach children about social boundaries related to sexual activity. But this child's behavior, which Mom insisted should remain private, was intentionally made public. By her mother. The link was passed back and forth on the internet for weeks, and as we all know, once it's online, information is nearly permanently accessible.
Masturbation is a harmless, healthy sexual activity, and the little girl's behavior was completely normal. But let's mentally fast-forward to her adolescence, a life phase when even the most confident, happy young person can be crushed by ridicule from peers. How will she feel if someone unearths that blog post about her young fascination with masturbation? Her adolescent knowledge that it was normal behavior is unlikely to compensate for the embarrassment of being publically outed.
It would have been easy for the blogger to share her sex ed advice (which was quite good ) without exposing her child's private behavior to friends and strangers. She, like other parents who over-share online, failed to respect and protect her daughter's privacy.
The Importance of Sexual Privacy Rights
Because sexuality encompasses so many aspects of our being, it presents endless fodder for anecdotes and photo ops that were once preserved in baby books and are now archived on social media platforms.
It's time to carefully assess the information you share about your children. If they are old enough to have a reasoned opinion, ask for permission to post about them. If they are younger, err on the side of privacy. Your children are likely to thank you for it later in life when they are ready to begin slowly and deliciously sharing personal information to potential romantic partners.
As Murphy notes in her article, "...information about yourself is like currency. The amount you spend on a person signifies how much your value the relationship. And that person compensates you in kind. That's why it feels like theft when someone tells your secrets or data miners piece together your personal history."
Parents, stop data mining your kids' lives for your own entertainment, ego, or career. Let your children determine which stories they want to share, in their own time.