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Family

French parents may be banned from sharing photos of their kids online. Should every country do it?

Has “sharenting” gone too far?

france, sharenting, kids social media
via Pexels

A mom takes a selfie with her two children.

France’s National Assembly has passed a new law that could seriously impact parents’ ability to share photos of their children online. If passed by the Senate and signed by the president, it would give courts the power to ban parents from posting pictures of their children online.

The bill is controversial because it takes away parents’ rights and puts them in the hands of the government. But supporters believe there are more than a few good reasons for the potential ban.

First, it keeps the child’s image out of the hands of unsavory characters. Member of Parliament Bruno Studer, who proposed the bill, told Le Monde, “'A 13-year-old child has an average of 1,300 images of themselves circulating on the internet. These are photos that can be misused for child pornography or that can lead to bullying in the school environment.”

According to Le Monde, 50% of all imagery of children shared on child pornography forums was first posted online by the child’s parents. The bill would also give both parents the right to the child’s image, so if one parent thinks the other is posting inappropriate images, they have the right to stop it.

"The first two articles aim to establish the protection of privacy as one of the responsibilities of parents as holders of parental authority, for which they must obviously involve the child,” Struder continued. "In the most extreme cases, it is provided that the family judge may, if necessary, make a forced partial delegation of parental authority for the specific case of an exercise of image rights."

Opponents of the bill believe that the legislation would strike a blow to parents’ rights. But doesn’t a child have a right to choose how their image is used, especially in a world where the photos could remain visible for the foreseeable future? As the old saying goes, online is forever and photos taken of someone as a child could follow them around well into adulthood.

Further, as the first generation of children who grew up in influencer families are becoming adults, we’re starting to realize the damage the lifestyle can have on young people. Aren’t these kids entitled to some protection from being exploited by their parents?

"We talk a lot about image rights, but not about children's dignity," Thomas Rohmer, Director and founder of l’Observatoire de la Parentalité et de l’Education Numérique, told Le Monde.

The bill has struck up a much-needed debate online and some parents are adamant that it’s their business what they do with photos of their children and no one else’s.

Others joked that bills like this would help end the annoying “sharenting” trend.

Some applaud the idea.

The debate is interesting because it involves three rightfully interested parties—parents, their children, and a state entrusted to protect children's rights. Whether or not the law is passed, the debate should serve as a way for people to confront this serious idea and to give parents a reason to think twice before posting photos of their children online.

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Astronaut shares the profound 'big lie' he realized after seeing the Earth from space

This change in perspective could change humanity.

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Our home, from space.

Sixty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin became the first human to make it into space and probably the first to experience what scientists now call the "overview effect." This change occurs when people see the world from far above and notice that it’s a place where “borders are invisible, where racial, religious and economic strife are nowhere to be seen.”

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Woman’s experience scheduling an EEG highlights the unconscious bias of textured hair

Though her scalp was exposed for the procedure, they still insisted she take her twists out, making it harder to get to her scalp.

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Woman can't schedule EEG due to unconscious textured hair bias.

Getting a medical procedure done can be scary, or at the very least nerve-wracking, no matter how many times you've had it done. It's something that's outside of your normal routine and you're essentially at the mercy of the medical facility and providers. Most of the time, the pre-procedure instructions make sense, and if something catches you by surprise, it's usually easily explained.

Sadé Naima recently had an experience while attempting to get an EEG that wasn't easily explained away. In fact, the entire situation didn't make sense to the TikTok creator who experiences migraines. Naima uploaded a video to the social media platform explaining the sequence of events that happened after her doctor referred her to receive an MRI and EEG.

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Wife cooks nachos for 'picky' husband who refused to eat her salmon. But she has a point.

Should she be cooking two meals?

via TheMamaBrianna/TikTok

Brianna Greenfield makes nachos for her husband.

A viral video showing a woman preparing nachos for her "picky" spouse after he refused to eat the salmon dinner she cooked has sparked a contentious debate on TikTok. The video was shared on April 26 by Brianna Greenfield (@themamabrianna on TikTok) and has since earned over 2.5 million views.

Brianna is a mother of two who lives in Iowa.

The video starts with Brianna grating a massive hunk of cheese with a caption that reads: “My husband didn’t eat the dinner that I made…So let’s make him some nachos.”

“If I don’t feed him, he literally won’t eat,” she wrote. “This used to irritate me. Now I just blame his mother for never making him try salmon,” Greenfield wrote. The video features Meghan Trainor’s single “Mother” playing in the background.

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Heroic train conductor spots and saves 3-year-old autistic, nonverbal boy lost on tracks

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An MTA employee rescues a 3-year-old child on the tracks.

Five Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees are hailed as heroes for their quick thinking and diligence in the April 6 rescue of a young boy. Locomotive Engineer William Kennedy was operating a southbound Hudson Line train near Tarrytown, a few miles north of New York City, when he noticed an unusual object on the northbound track.

That “object” was a 3-year-old boy.

Kennedy sent an emergency call out to all trains in the area, catching the attention of a northbound conductor, Shawn Loughran, and a trainee. Loughran slowed down his train as he approached the child, who was straddling the electrified third rail.

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Here’s how we can use the power of awe to make our lives more fulfilling

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Most of us love having at least a few of these experiences and believe they help us grow. But now, a team of psychologists has explained why cultivating a sense of awe can benefit our minds and bodies and how we can create these experiences ourselves.

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Not worth it.

It feels safe to say that we are all hoping to be more mindful about how we spend our money these days, whether it’s to be kinder to the environment, align better with our values, improve our finances or simply exercise free will against the siren call of consumerism.

That’s why this video essay created by Cara Nicole (who gives all kinds of financials and sustainability education on her Youtube channel) feels so timely.

In just under twenty minutes, Nicole astutely breaks down how luxury brands like Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Rolex create the fake illusion of wealth through “manufactured exclusivity” and getting free marketing from celebrities and influencers—who often don’t even pay for the products themselves. Meanwhile, most real rich people wouldn’t be caught dead in the flashy brands, and in reality consider them "overrated." But still, the illusion persists. Because advertising.

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