Parents, please grow up

Are you guilty of mommyjacking? Mama drama? Bathroom behaviour? Worst of all, could you be a Sanctimommy?

Blair Koenig' s blog "STFU Parents" (a shortened version of "Shut the expletive up") has just spawned a book.

The 31-year-old writer from New York has built up a loyal following - at its peak, two million page views a month - by chronicling the worst excesses of "oversharing" displayed by mums and dads on Facebook, Twitter and the rest.

From "documoms" flooding their feeds with close-ups of raw gums and nappy contents, to parents bragging about their baby's achievements - "She's gifted!"- or explaining how everyone else is doing the child thing wrong, they all find their way onto her site.

"You used to be fun," reads the STFU strapline, "now you have a baby."

Mommyjacking - using others' unrelated observations as a chance to weigh in on parenthood - proves a particular bugbear, usually involving the offender telling a childless friend to "try doing that when you're pregnant and have three children".

One well-wisher congratulates a newly qualified doctor with: "How exciting. Now you need the title 'mommy'."

Sometimes, it is a picture that is worth 1000 words. A memorable Facebook photo is best summed up by Koenig: "The baby is crowning in this picture. Why would anyone put that online?"

Social media actively encourages parental oversharing , according to psychologist Sandra Wheatley .

"We all know, ultimately, whether people are interested in what we are saying," she explains.

"The difference with social media is that you don't have somebody looking at you askance so there's no instant feedback, somebody saying, 'Please, no'. People are reluctant to put that in writing, so you are reliant on your own boundaries."

By now, Koenig has established some strict ground rules for parents.

"Anything with bodily fluids is definitely overshare," Koenig said, with a laugh.

"Other than that, I think if you're editing yourself, then you know.

"If you post, you know, 400 pictures of your labour and delivery, you probably know that you are oversharing." - ©The Telegraph