Baby Face

So...I use Facebook a lot. I've noticed that once my friends have kids, they never again put their own picture as their profile pic. It's always a picture of the children. This confuses the heck out of me when I'm searching for someone who's supposed to be an adult and find only pictures of kids!

This is a serious question: I want to know why you put your kids as your profile pic. I'm not a parent, so I don't understand the psychology, and I would like to. I wouldn't put my husband as my profile pic- LOL- and I'm pretty fond of him 🙂

Can someone explain? I've asked friends this question before, but I never got an answer.

It does seem like a bit of a security risk.

For safety reasons you should never post your childs pic as your profile pic on any social networking site.
There are weird and strange people out there! And they can associate your childs pic, to your hometown, schools, etc. Its a HUGE NO NO!
I have a son (he is 12) but even when he was smaller I NEVER put his pic up, on my fb or anywhere, for the above mentioned resons. Call me paranoid but I want to see my son after school!

yEAH WITH SO MANY PICS OF YOUR KIDS ALL OVER FACEBOOK DON'T KNOW IF IT'S ALL THAT SAFE..

Former facebook user here (I quit the site about six months ago and am never looking back)/parent:

It's first and foremost that they are proud of their children, or they think it's a particularly cute picture of their children and they want all their friends to see it. When I occasionally did this, I didn't worry much about the security element of it because my profile was locked down really tight to only genuine personal friends of mine who would have seen my child out in the world anyway. I also made my profile unsearchable, and didn't accept friend requests (only became friends with those I sought out myself).

Aside from that, I suppose it's possible that some of the parents who do this simply think their kids are cuter than they are. And, let's face it...they usually are. Parenting, in most cases, forces a change of outlook for people. It's suddenly well-understood - especially among friends that are all parents themselves - that posting pictures of yourself comes across as shallow, meaningless and as a means of fishing for compliments once you've brought a child, who is more important than you, now, into the world.

As a childfree person, I do think it's really odd that parents would see it as shallow to put their own picture on their own profile. It's THEIR profile, after all, not their child's. I would like for my friends to see themselves as just as important as the humans they create. But, I do get what you're saying. Thank you!

I did notice that parents seem to revert back to their own pictures when their children reach a certain age (5 and older).