Co-incidentally I found myself having to answer this question twice this week. The first time was in a note from my son’s school about having his photo taken for something to do with the MS Read-a-thon.
The second time was when I took Coco to a music/dance class at a local community hall and the teacher was asking all the mothers to sign a release form because she had a photographer there taking some shots for her music class website. Immediately, I felt uncomfortable. The words “photo” “children” and “website” have instant ALERT implications, don’t they? Well, they do for me.
I finally got around to reading David Marr’s fantastic book about the Bill Henson controversy recently and one of the most salient points he makes is that in past decade, with the proliferation of the internet into our lives, as a society we have become so suspicious about the photography of children. A cloud of suspicion and fear hangs over the whole IDEA of photographing children.
As I stood there with the other mothers (some of whom were happily signing while others wanted to check that no names would be used) my gut instinct was to say no. Then an argument broke out inside my head.
Me: “Come on, just sign. You’re being ridiculous and paranoid.”
Me: “You don’t know what these shots can be used for. Don’t do it.”
Me: “But it’s a MUSIC class. And her name isn’t going to be anywhere attached to them.”
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Years ago I had a conversation with an ex. He has a young son and stated that he was never going to let him walk to school because 'there are so many weirdos out there'. I found the idea of all these kids being overly coddled by their parents sad. The joys of discovering the world with your peers and alone are wonderful.
I have read that we actually live in the safest era of history but we have such a surplas of information that it insights fear. Once we would have lived in ignorant bliss if something nasty happened in the next villiage but now we are aware of what is happening on the other side of the world as it happens.
In saying that, whenever I take my ten year old sister out I look through slitted eyes at every potential preditor and hate myself for it.
I think that we over react too much on these issues. Lets face it if someone really wanted a photo of your child they could get it. I have two daughters and to be honest I have not even thought about the possiblity of someone taking their image and using it for something so vile.
Where do we stop? Do we stop having kids in the pumpkin patch catalogue because someone could scan it and use it inappropriately? Do we stop giving our film or photos on a disc to the local dry cleaners to print for us because we are frightened of them using the image somehow? Of course not. Maybe if we as mothers retain the innoncence of things such as a simple photo then maybe society would expect no less. It is the constant fear of a behaviour that lends it credibility. (the behaviour becomes one that is then shared by others - for example if you are a user of drugs and you are in a room full of people who are non drug users, then you are certainly not going to confess or partake in drugs in that moment are you? But if you are aware that others might be taking drugs then you feel less fearful to admit that you do as well and more likely to partake in that activity. My point is that yes there are devious, ill and disturbed people out there who will do these things, but lets not let our fear trick us all into believing (and then sharing that belief with others) that these types of behaviours are the norm rather than the behaviour of the isolated, disturbed and 0.0000001% of society. By recognition of the behaviour through our fear of it, we in fact normalise it.