A little obsessive?

Just as a background; my partner and are in a long term relationship (15 years). I’ve always had a good relationship with his family but things have changed since little one came along earlier this year. His parents are still really good to us in many ways though and I appreciate that. However, his parents pushed so many boundaries that it’s also pushed me away. They are defiant - for example, when baby was born, we hadn’t considered posting photos on social media in the long-term. I waited for us to return from hospital to post an announcement on FB. Then, I saw that partner’s father had uploaded a photo and changed WhatsApp photo to baby, without asking. This gave me a big anxiety I had not even considered, being a first time mum. I asked partner at the time to tell father that we weren’t posting photos, only us as the parents, were going to post little and infrequently - basically within our control. The reply was a blunt ‘ok’ though the photo was not deleted (fortunately it was a Facebook story and expired after 24hrs). Longer term, this request been mostly respected with the exception of WhatsApp profile photos. They’ve got a digital photo frame. They take photos every time they see baby and add to this digital photo frame which can hold up to 10k photos. Every photo is of our baby, even the ones of us in hospital/leaving the hospital. I said to them that perhaps they should upload photos of other family members too but I was told an authoritative ‘no’. I am now careful what photos we send as every photo is without fail saved and goes to this digital photo frame. I get I’m probably being over the top and insecure, and so I try to excuse this as obviously this frame is just in their house. That said, any photo we send ends up as a screensaver, work PC screensaver also. But just wanted to hear other peoples’ thoughts? 💭 Is this a phase? Will they eventually relax? 💭

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I wouldn’t want my baby as someone’s screen saver on their phone or on their work pc, however a digital photo album in their home I don’t see an issue at all?

They are family... You don't want them to have photos of your child? I don't understand. I would not bother at all if they did this. Photos are great memories. And you're Trying escaping modern age. Digital world is a real thing. Social media. It's your family members. They're not selling those photos on dark web or anything. It's literally for their memories and the photos to look at and reminisce. I'm very much open to this and would not mind at all. It looks like they love your child and want to really be present. I would be happy and send them more photos and would not mind at all if they had a digital photo frame at home. It's cool.

I totally agree with the social media side. People do need to be respectful of what you as a parent want to go out in the world about your child (and equally about yourself too). Especially since many grandparents have such shitty privacy and security settings in their accounts. The digital photo frame I wouldn’t be bothered about it since it’s something kept in their home. That being said I wouldn’t want to see myself fresh out of labour plastered in a photo frame 😅

Thanks all! I know I get overly anxious about stuff I shouldn’t - motherhood has done strange things to me. I’m trying to work on it. I’m hoping my anxiety around social media eases as baby gets older, as I imagine it’s lovely being relaxed about that and ‘showing off’ your little one. But for now, we will limit the posts and keep it to us parents posting only. As for the screensaver side of things, I’ve relaxed about that as there’s not really much I can do about that - it’s beyond my control 🙂