London - Now she is almost a teenager, my 12-year-old has slipped into a new Friday routine. Sometimes, instead of coming home after school, she’ll go on a sleepover with a classmate.
As you know, I’m struggling to accept her pre-teen bids for independence, this cutting of the invisible umbilical cord. But, apparently, you can’t Velcro them to the sofa once they are taller than you, so, reluctantly, I agree to her occasional lunge for freedom.
But I’m not a complete pushover. There are rules. Bed before midnight, I tell her. Keep your phone switched on. No skirts shorter than “a knee above the knee” for the inevitable Saturday shopping trip. And don’t dye your hair pink. I had to add the last one this week. Or maybe I should be more specific: if you do dye it pink, don’t let your mom find out you’ve done this via the social media site Instagram.
It’s a small rebellion, a tiny campfire before the blazing inferno of teenagedom, no doubt.
The pink hair itself isn’t the problem. My daughter knows I couldn’t give two hoots about that. If she’s brave enough to explain her day-glo highlights at school, then her future is bright. No, her mini mutiny was putting her picture up on to her private Instagram account. It’s not allowed.
If you were to follow me on Facebook, you’d probably conclude I was the least proud mom alive because there are no pictures identifying any of my four children.
There are a few of the toddler’s feet modelling her increasingly bizarre shoe collection, and one of our middle daughter dressed as the “underpant ninja”, but she’s unidentifiable as a human being, let alone a ten-year-old girl. Apart from that, there’s zilch.
What’s more, I ask other people - close relatives included - not to put pictures of my youngsters on their social media. As a result, I come some way down the leaderboard in the family popularity contest and my 12-year-old thinks I am the meanest mom ever.
Is my decision hypocritical? Possibly. After all, I do write about the children in this column every week, and share family news with complete strangers on Twitter.
So let me explain why I do it. Several years ago, I was sent some threatening letters at work, which mentioned harming my children. This kind of thing happens to people in the media and, usually, you ignore it, but these were specific enough to take to the police.
So I implemented a picture ban on the kids. Oddly, despite the circumstances, some relatives found my photo ban annoying and “Who does she think she is - Madonna?” became a family catchphrase.
Time has passed, there have been no more letters, yet still I insist on the lockdown, which I have just had to reinforce, even with my infuriated eldest, who, like all of her friends, conducts her social life online.
Why? Because it feels too intrusive and personal, like letting a stranger rifle through your underwear drawer. And, more importantly, why would I allow someone else to choose what photos of my children will be available online for others to see for the rest of their lives?
Who knows what will be lurking in the Facebook shadows when they go for their first job interview?
Like so much of what happens online, it’s about manners. This ever-increasing culture of taking it for granted you have permission to post pictures of children, other than your own, troubles me.
Motherhood makes one paranoid about safety at the best of times - I don’t need something else that will wake me up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night.
It seems privacy settings on social media are as useless as the magnetic toddler lock on our crisp drawer, so, before you know it, pictures of your little boy dressed as Barbie Fairy Princess for example, could appear all over the internet and rank top of the Google search for a future employer.
Maybe my killjoy instinct is an overreaction, as my daughter says. After all, who doesn’t love to share news of their kids?
But I want to control that news, not other people. And I think until my daughter is old enough to work out that she may as well stick her pictures to a lamppost in Oxford Street as put them on social media, she is probably better off keeping out of the limelight, don’t you? - Daily Mail
* Lorraine Candy is editor-in-chief of ELLE magazine