I am a loner. An outcast. Someone not to be trusted.

Why?

Because I don’t, and never will, post pictures of my kids on the internet. Not on my personal blog, not on this blog, and definitely not on Facebook.

In an ocean of mommybloggers who document their offspring’s every moment online, I stand out. And not in a good way. I actually feel that in the long run, it has hurt me as a blogger not to post pictures. People want to identify with you, and it is hard to do that if they have no idea what you and your family look like.  I’ve actually noticed that some of the most popular bloggers are the ones who post lots and lots of pictures of themselves and their families.

But the way I see it, once you post a picture on the intertubes, it is always there. There is always a version of it cached somewhere, even if you delete it later. I feel it is unfair for me to put up a bunch of pictures of my kids for people to possibly find one day and use for their own purposes. The thought of that totally skeeves me out. The fact that if they felt like it, a complete stranger could print out a picture of my son and put it in a frame in their own home makes me feel faint. 

Now, is there much likelihood that this will happen?

Not really.

But there is always the possibility, and I am just that paranoid.

And speaking of paranoid? As a public service announcement, I would like to introduce you to a new site called Spokeo. On this site, many of your nightmares may actually come true. If you look up your name, you will find a bunch of aggregated information about yourself culled from public sources, including your age, where you live, your phone number, whether you own a house and how much it is currently worth, and pictures of your property.  If you have a spouse, there will be a link under your name to all of your spouse’s information.  Oh, and be sure to look up your maiden name as well.  On mine, it had links to my mom and dad.  If someone wants to pay three bucks, they can look at financial information as well as pictures you’ve posted on Facebook.

I figure if someone wants really badly to locate me, then they are going to have to hire a freaking private detective.  None of this one-second searching on the internet and finding out everything about me.  You want to know where I live, you are going to have to work for it.

I opted out of Spokeo using a gmail address I made specifically for that purpose. You might want to to the same.