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If there’s one thing Mary Jane Farnsworth can’t stand, it’s seeing pictures in her Facebook feed of the classic “just gave birth” moment, featuring a weakened new mother and a baby still covered in goo.
“I’m old-school on this subject,” says Farnsworth, who knows whereof she speaks — she is an NYC baby photographer.
“I’m like, ‘Let’s clean Mommy up and put some makeup on and a cute outfit before we take that photo. Brush your hair.’ Birth is a dirty business, and I really don’t want to see it. It’s like, if you have an open wound, would you want people to see it?” she asks.
Strangely, there are many who would answer yes. They do want people to see. And as quickly as possible.
To be fair, there are varying degrees of Facebook Baby Craziness Disorder. At the saner end, the mother uses her newborn’s face as her own profile pic. Toward the middle, there’s the mom who gives her 500 or so Facebook friends an “inside look” by posting the classic ultrasound photo that reveals the amphibious fetus within.
Then, at the far end of the spectrum, is the “love from the hospital” shot, which has become ubiquitous on Facebook as new parents post every squeal, shriek, breath and gurgle of said newborn, accompanied by a string of “oooh” and “aaaahh” comments.
Facebook Mommy Mania is everywhere.
So common is the annoyance at parental oversharing that anonymous blogger B. makes a living posting their most outrageous activities on her site, STFU, Parents (“STFU” stands for “Shut the F – – k Up”).
B., a 28-year-old freelance writer from Brooklyn, puts the 50 submissions she receives per day in the following categories: “Mommy Jacking” is when a mommy will hijack someone’s status update with a non sequitur about her own child. Like this recent one: The status update reads: “Hoping for no nuclear meltdown [in Japan]. And the next comment says: “For the people of Japan and from the 2½-year-old in my house. Both bad situations.”
“Woe is Mom” is where a mom will complain that the FedEx man had the nerve to ring the doorbell in the middle of the day and wake her child. And “bathroom behavior” includes, well, pretty much what you’d imagine.
“These people are just immersed in baby world — all of their friends are in that demographic, and they don’t think it’s weird,” explains B., who receives anonymous Facebook screen shots from all over the world.
“My theory is that the people who post this kind of stuff were like that before they had kids,” she says. “They were probably always somewhat obsessive.”
A 31-year-old New Jersey mother of 5-week-old twins, who posts baby photos regularly and asks for parenting advice online, says that’s accurate.
“Before I had kids, I posted a lot of questions anyway, because it’s a good place to get information. This just happens to be what I need information about now,” she says.
She adds that it helps her have contact with moms of twins that she wouldn’t normally know.
A New York mother of a 6-month-old girl makes no apologies for the 200 cellphone photos she’s posted of her little one. (Facebook capped her at that number.) “It’s constant. It’s really bad,” says the woman, who asked to remain anonymous.
“I just love taking photos of my baby. She’s so cute. My own friend said to me, ‘Wow, you need a hobby.’ But, my God, I’m so in love with her.” She is guilty of posting both the ultrasound shot (“It really looks like her!”) and the delivery-room shot. (“At that point I didn’t really care [how I looked], I just cared that my baby was healthy, and I know that my family wanted to see her.”)
While these oversharers are busy clogging computers with their little ones, some go to the opposite extreme.
Susan Ferrucci Dunn, 32, a former Bronx assistant district attorney is wary of too much Facebook exposure. She is the mother of a six-week-old son.
“I told people not to post pictures of me pregnant, and they thought I was nuts. If they did, I would untag it within five seconds. I hate it. People think I’m crazy, but I don’t care,” says Dunn, who blames her years as an ADA for her paranoia about sharing info online. She has a few photos of the baby on her page now, but as he gets older, “the less pictures I will post because it makes me nervous,” she says.
Social-media strategist Kelly Olexa says the focus on oversharing misses the point.
“What is your kid going to think of this in five or 10 years?” she asks. “It’s like they lived in front of floor-to-ceiling windows their whole life.”
stefanie.cohen@nypost.com