Ah, you've got to love Facebook haven't you? Not determined with having 750 million of the world's population on their social media platform, they're now targetting the unborn.
A new feature launched this summer allows parents-to-be the chance to list on their profile page that they are with child. Previously, users have been able to add family members to their profiles but they can now select an 'expected child' field and include information about the due date and possible baby name.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Having had a baby just last year, I found that telling people was actually one of the highlights of being pregnant. Seeing someone's face light up at the announcement sure made up for the morning-noon-and-night sickness and the inability to go for more than one hour without peeing! Yes, there were some friends who found out via Facebook, but to be honest, they weren't really friends, merely acquaintances.
My biggest worry however about adding an expected date to my profile would be how I would deal with the loss of a baby in such a public arena. News spreads so quickly on Facebook and it would be heartbreaking to be receiving congratulations from people when something so tragic has happened.
As much as I love social media, sometimes there is no substitute for a conversation over the phone or in person.
And while I'm here talking about children and Facebook, can we please just address my absolute pet hate? People who use pictures of their children as their profile pics. I don't want to see dear little Billy as your profile pic, I want to see you. I don't mind if your children are in the picture with you, but this is your page. Billy can have his own page when he's old enough. I'm friends with you, not him. Ok, rant over!
