How to keep your kids’ faces off the internet

Plus: mass deportation, evangelical identity, and more

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A take I haven’t written elsewhere

How to keep your kids’ faces off the internet

(via)

In July of 2019, after having our twins, the third article I wrote for The Week on returning from maternity leave was entitled: “I’ll only ever post 1 photo of my kids on Facebook.”

Now, this may sound like hubris to you, especially if I tell you that not only was it just my third piece back but that I went back to work a day shy of the six-week mark.¹ Six whole weeks, you may be inclined to scoff, and making plans for the entirety of parenthood!

Well, now that I am very nearly at the six-year mark, the moment has come for my victory lap. I have, in fact, only ever posted one photo of our twins’ faces to Facebook—or anywhere else on the public internet. That photo is the one I mentioned in that article: the birth announcement. Ditto for our youngest four years later.

We never even posted family Christmas pictures, despite my suggestion back then that this might be an annual exception to our rule. I have made the odd Instagram post including the backs of the children’s heads, but these are few and far between and never anything recognizable to man or machine.

And you know what? Sticking to this policy has never been difficult. On the contrary, it has been remarkably easy. So, six years into this—absolutely ages by any metric of the digital age—let me tell you how to keep your kids’ faces off the internet too.