I should have known better. I am fiercely protective of not only my privacy but also my children's. It is the reason why you will never see a picture of my or my children's faces on this site. It is also the reason I use pseudonyms for myself and my family. Anyone that knows me in real life and comes across this blog will immediately know it is me but acquaintances and strangers will not be able to identify me or my family.
My brother, whom I love dearly, does not seem to understand this. He continues to post pictures of my children, along with their names to his Facebook profile. I have asked him repeatedly to stop. When I take a cute picture and he asks me to send it to him, I ask if he will post it on Facebook and when he says yes, I refuse to send it. Every time I try to talk to him about it he rolls his eyes and says it is no big deal.
I know he is extremely proud of his nieces, heck he is their godfather and should anything ever happen to my husband and I he will become their guardian, but I don't want 300 of his closest friends, co-workers and extended family members who I purposefully have no contact with to see my children's pictures or know their names or birth dates. I hate running into mutual acquaintances and having them tell me how much they love that cute picture that their uncle posted up.
So imagine my (non)surprise when I sent him an adorable picture of my girls all cuddling together in my bed and 5 hours later it appeared on Facebook along with "likes" from those very same family members whom I have no contact with. I should have known better. I shouldn't have sent the picture but it was early in the morning, I was sleepy and frankly, I forgot about his obsession with posting my children all over his Facebook site.
What do I do about it? I don't want to cause a rift in the family, I love my brother dearly and I don't want to cut him out of their lives but at the same time I am NOT comfortable with complete strangers or family I have no contact with knowing my children's names, ages, birth dates and what they look like.
Does anyone out there have a suggestion for how to handle this? I know I could probably go the legal route and report the photos to Facebook and they would be taken down but it would upset my brother. How can I make him understand that it isn't his place to post pictures of MY children? How can I make him understand that I don't want my children to have a digital footprint right now? All of my friends ask my permission before posting anything to do with my children and on occasion I have given permission such as when my 2 older girls were flower girls in a friends wedding and she wanted to post her wedding pics on her profile. I gave her permission but asked that she please only put their first names on the pictures. Why can my parents understand this, my childless friends understand this, but my (also childless) brother can't? How can I word it so he will finally get the point?
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