Baftime
Robin really likes bathtime these days. He especially loves kicking the water so it splashes everywhere. I had a picture of him grinning like a loon, but it was blurry, so you get this one instead.
I actually dithered about posting this snapshot, since I do intent to instruct my children that posting pictures of their genitals to the Internet is in general a bad idea. But the actual pee-pee visibility is minimal here—and the solemn, wet little baby face so very cute—so in the end I decided to share.
The question of whether to post images of one’s children on the Internet is one to which conscientious parents arrive at different answers. The bogeyman scenario, I guess, is that some crazed psycho would happen upon these pictures and decide to kidnap our son. I know enough about how our fears are disconnected from true risk—and specifically about how our fears are disconnected from the true risk of child abuse—to realize that this scenario is so unlikely as to bear no consideration.
What I do think is worth considering is my son’s right to privacy, to control his own image. The Internet is forever, and anybody can look at these images. They might even be used in ways we never intended. I respect parents who choose to limit the dissemination of their children’s images, but I’ve decided that the convenience of easily sharing them with our whole scattered network of family and friends, and the joy they bring thereby, is worth the trade-off.
