The “emoji over the kid's face” argument
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Dear diary:
This one’s something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while. I was reminded when I saw the below video on TikTok that I had some stuff to say.
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I am an emoji over my kid’s face person and I’m going to explain it, and all the contradictions it entails.
Before Seren was born, I decided I didn’t want his face to be on the internet. I’ve had some really scary and unpleasant experiences in the time that I’ve been sharing my life online. I don’t want him to be inadvertently involved in any similar experiences due to the way that his Mother uses social media. Ultimately though, the reasoning is simple. My child cannot consent to having his identity on the internet. There are also personal safety concerns, privacy concerns (I believe every child has a right to privacy), and finally, concerns about ethics when it comes to utilising one’s children in paid partnerships and social media content.
Not sharing my son Seren’s face online is hard. I don’t like it. I don’t actually really know what to share anymore now that my whole life is being his Mum. But fundamentally I believe it’s the right choice to make and I’ve stuck to it. Herein enters the emoji over the face strategy. This strategy has gained a bit of backlash due to it coming across as a bit of a contradiction, I suppose. Why share the photo at all?
I suppose there may be context in the photo with the emoji covering my kid’s face that makes me feel like it still might be worth putting it out in the world. A photo of my son sitting in front of a giant present from his grandparents, his face covered. A photo of him facing away from me sitting up for the first time. A photo of us as a family with his faced covered but myself and my husband visible. Of course, the entire expanse of the photo is not just his face with an emoji on it. It’s a way that I feel I can give a bit of context to my life in my Instagram stories while still maintaining the privacy that I believe he is entitled to.
I don’t post emoji face covered photos a lot. I know they’re a bit annoying, omitting the part of the photo your eye is drawn to, the part with the most information. But it’s been the solution myself and many others have come to and there must be a reason for this.
Is it selfish? A bit, yes. I want my cake and to eat it too. I want everyone to know I’m a Mum and I want to talk about it. I want ways to do that without centring my son and his identity.
The other take down of the emoji over the child’s face is usually something along the lines of “You’re not a CELEBRITY, no one cares what your kid looks like!” True and true! I am painfully aware that I’m not a celebrity. If I were I would live in a bigger house. Putting an emoji over my kid’s face is not me implying he’s more precious than anyone else’s kid. It’s certainly not me elevating myself to celebrity status pretending that everyone is desperate to know what my kid looks like. No one is! But whether or not readers of the Daily Mail would care what he looks like in a paparazzi shot, it’s important that I make the decision to opt him out until he can enthusiastically and informedly opt himself in.
I watched another video loosely on the topic by Kate Forster on TikTok the other day. Paraphrasing, she said that she understands why Mothers fall into family vlogging. Becoming a Mother is one of the most life altering, earth shattering things you can ever do, and your whole identity is stripped away. While you’re trying to pick up the pieces and to feel relevant and useful, filming your day with your kids is something doable and also allows you to form community by sharing this content. Even better, you can also receive validation from other Mums. Money from sponsorships. All for doing the things you’re just expected to do without an audience. In theory it’s a very attractive prospect, and I do understand the motivation. Unfortunately, while my child feels so much a part of me - I grew and birthed him literally from my body - I don’t believe I am entitled to package up his shifting identities or his intimate moments and put them online in my own quest to feel relevant, useful or accepted post Motherhood.
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Genuinely, I’d love to vlog my day with Seren and put it on TikTok. To post a photo of him on my Instagram story. For people I don’t know to tell me that he’s the cutest baby ever. I would really enjoy sharing this part of my life having shared so much up until now. But something wouldn’t sit quite right with me about it, because deep down I know it’s not entirely my decision to make.
I think there are ways to strike a balance with the content you share publicly. The emoji over the face is, of course, one way. “Hey world! I am a Mum of a human!” An image with said human’s face visible is not necessarily necessary to illustrate that point. Personally speaking, I also started this Substack. I can express myself here, talk about Motherhood and form community without relying on showcasing the identity of my child. Or, a private social media account with just your friends and family could work too! (Why didn’t I think of that!) …I’ll probably just continue bugging everyone I know by texting them photos of Seren.
Honestly, I feel like being anti emoji over the child’s face is a really unnuanced argument. “Just don’t post the picture at all!” I feel like not posting the picture at all is silencing the parenting perspective of the journey. And if there is one thing that parents need, in my experience particularly Mothers - it’s somewhere to talk (vent) about how crazy this whole having kids thing is. Sharing your personal lived experience in parenthood while still respecting the autonomy of your child, I think, should be celebrated and not torn down. We’re always only trying our very best.
Wishlist:
I desperately need a new pair of casual runners for day to day wear. These will also be a part of my new *casual at home Mum wardrobe* I previously mentioned.
My current Adidas Sambas are looking SO worse for wear and I’m searching or an upgrade. The Adidas SL 72 looks good to me, specifically this pair:
I just need someone in my life who’s younger than me who I can ask if things are cringe or not. I think these will pass as okay as long as I wear them with crew socks, right?
Inside a book/magazine from my collection:
I bought this at Savers the other day, it’s Women’s Day and Home from October 1950. I got another issue too I’ll show you next time. I showed my Nanna and I was thinking how her looking through them is the equivalent nostalgia wise of me looking through my 2000s Dolly Magazines. So I think she enjoyed it. I don’t use a lot of 1950s material for my collages, but I still enjoy basically any era of vintage printed material as it’s just fascinating and educational to me. I mourn for when printed magazines and newspapers eventually stop being produced, and we’ll have nothing sort of ‘day to day’ to look back on physically. Until then…
Watching/listening:
The vibes were high driving Seren back home from my Mum and Dad’s this evening. (I take Seren there so that I can work my part time job and he can be minded by my Mum 🥰) It’s unseasonably warm and we’re heading into the Easter long weekend. My favourite radio station Smooth 91.5 was playing absolute bangers and they dropped Kylie Minogue’s Step Back in Time which I believe is so underrated. Please let it take you into the long weekend also:
Thank you so much for reading. I hope this week’s topic didn’t come across as me being too judgemental. I just wanted to explain my personal choices and also rebut the arguments I’ve seen against those choices. Every parent makes the choice they deem right for themselves and their family and I do respect that.
Also, I’m so sorry again I’m so bad at replying to comments and Instagram DMs. Now that I’m back at work it’s a challenge to get this newsletter out at the moment! I appreciate every single one and sometimes I go on binges of replying, but it just may be very belated!
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I appreciate your candour in this piece and the nuance with which you wrote it. I'm still forming my definitive position on this topic. But I do think there is a contradiction in the position that not sharing a child's face is somehow protecting their privacy. In my view, if you're sharing a picture of a child having fun in the park, or opening a present on their birthday, you're still sharing moments of their life without their consent. Not showing their faces doesn't change that. Their privacy is still being impinged upon. Now, I don't think this is a reason to never post a picture of a child online. It should be balanced with other considerations, like documenting and sharing your motherhood journey. I think there can be instances where it is appropriate to share, for example if it's in the context of a family holiday, or you're sharing a picture of you doing something meaningful to you that happens to feature your child in it. I firmly believe the intent of that photo and of the sharing itself makes a difference. Let me give a very stark example: a photo of a child taking a bath with their face obscured by an emoji is to me much more inappropriate than a photo of a child and her mum sitting under a tree and grinning to the camera. You can have an emoji-faced kid with a much more inappropriate level of exposure than one appearing bare-faced in a few family pictures. Common sense is key here (as in most things parenting!)
It sounds like you have a pretty sensible approach to the emoji dilemma….I still take issue with it because most parents I see doing it are wildly over sharing information about their child (health decisions, developmental progress, identifying cute quirks, etc) while duping themselves that they’re “protecting privacy” by covering their face. It seems dishonest, like they’re still shilling their kiddo’s existence for online attention.
I think there’s plenty of ways to share about motherhood online without turning the kids into child actors lol. There’s tasteful ways to obscure their faces (the first photo you share in this post is a great example). I can’t write off all emoji-covering-moms as performative losers but if I HAD to pick an unnuanced side of the argument, that’d be the one 🙈😅 thanks for sharing your take though, it is helpful to think through it a bit more.