Earlier this week Princess Beatrice and husband Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi shared the news that they were parents to another daughter, Athena. The official photograph is a very sweet image of their tiny baby, accompanied by her date of birth and the weight she was born at. I saw it, thought it was nice, and then moved on with my day without registering that of course it would be at least a little controversial because the couple had opted to show a picture of their daughter while hiding her face.
Honestly, I’ve rarely been more impressed by a Royal than I am with Beatrice for deciding that her daughter’s face was not for public consumption. Short of not making a birth announcement at all, it seems the best way to let the world know that they’ve had another child. But then, I am a zealous devotee to not showing your child’s face online.
When I got pregnant with my daughter, I didn’t mention it on social media at all. Initially it was about superstition: I’d previously had a miscarriage and had somehow convinced myself that being open about the pregnancy was tempting fate. There is literally no sense in that, but it was how I felt.
Then, by the time I was properly big-old-bump pregnant, I’d realised that in not telling anyone that I was pregnant, my career as a freelance writer was less likely to be impacted. So perhaps I was already primed to be private – but the more I thought about it, the more obvious it seemed. My child isn’t old enough to have a social media account, so why would I be putting pictures of her on mine?
After my daughter was born, I took thousands and thousands of pictures, then did nothing with them. The idea that people I’d gone to school with or half knew from a job years ago would see my tiny baby without ever meeting her felt wrong. So I shared a select few images with my immediate family, having been extremely clear that they were not to be sent on to other people, let alone posted on social media. If someone wanted to see her, we could FaceTime or I’d send a disappearing image. And that policy has continued into the toddler years. If there’s a picture I really want to share, I put an emoji over her face, screenshot the image, then upload the screenshot so that the emoji can’t be removed.
In many aspects of my life, I’m desperate to be liked and not one for speaking up. But I feel so defensive of my child’s right to anonymity that I will suspend that politeness.
I picked her weekend ballet class specifically on the basis that they forbid any recording or photography. But very often a parent will ignore these rules and whip their phone out and start filming. At which point I will ruin whatever tentative friendliness we’ve built up by asking them to stop. I will not have images of my leotard-clad child on a social media profile of someone whose last name I don’t even know. The reaction has often been disgruntled, with various parents arguing that they’re not going to post the footage so it doesn’t matter. But honestly I don’t care if they think I’m awful, as long as I know that they don’t have a single frame of my child.
In friendship groups it can also feel a bit tense, as I yank my daughter out of a group shot or – at the very least – cover her face with my hands. I try to get any pictures taken on my phone rather than anyone else’s so that I can share the original with my child cropped out or emoji-faced. I am very annoying in these set-ups, there’s no question about that. But I know that I’m doing the right thing and honestly I wish we could just take a group photo without anyone needing to put it on Instagram.
The internet is a dark, complex place. My entire career has been based online and I’m deeply aware of how much you can find out about a person based on scant information, and how many images you can make using AI. There are also legitimate, terrifying, reasons to be careful pertaining to the kind of abuse images that can be generated using totally innocent, fully clothed images. This isn’t common, but it’s also just not something I am willing to risk.
On the less harrowing side of the spectrum, charities estimate that by the time a child reaches five, there will be around 1,000 photos of them on the internet. The study which concluded that is from 2015, so the number might be even higher by now. And while I have no doubt that these pictures are posted by well-meaning parents who want to keep friends and family involved in their children’s childhoods, I can’t help thinking that 1,000 images is a staggering, terrifying digital footprint to have racked up in half a decade of life. I am extremely proud that the number of images of my child on the internet is, at time of writing, zero.
You might think this sounds paranoid. You wouldn’t be the first person to feel that way. I know that various friends consider it an indulgence, that they think I’m acting like some kind of celebrity. But I don’t care. I privately think that they’re making a less-than-ideal choice for their child, so it’s best that we just don’t talk about our respective views on the issue.
I have no doubt that like every teenager before her, my daughter will want to rebel, and that rebellion might well involve posting hundreds of selfies on the most public forum she can find. But at least by that point, it will be her choice.
Of course there are times I’ve wished that things were different. When there’s a beautiful picture of my daughter and I together, when she does something hilarious or adorable and I catch it on film, I want to share it. But then, that’s kind of the point. Her childhood isn’t mine to reproduce online to entertain people I’m tier-two friends with on Instagram. It’s her real life, and it belongs to her. She’s not old enough to have any idea what consent or privacy mean, so it’s my job to keep her digital footprint tiny until she can make an informed choice.