How Mark and Priscilla Will Parent in a Post-Facebook World

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan (with their dog, Beast) announced they are expecting a daughter. (Photo: Facebook/Mark Zuckerberg)

In an uncharacteristically personal Facebook post, Mark Zuckerberg revealed on Friday that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are expecting a daughter. And while the Facebook co-founder and CEO addressed his hopes for making the world a better place for his little girl, Zuckerberg didn’t discuss what parenting will be like in the social media-focused world that he is largely responsible for creating.

Will baby girl Zuckerberg have her own Facebook page? Will her proud parents document each passing month with a photo shoot, announcing milestones and lamenting sleepless nights? Will being a father change the way Zuckerberg approaches his company — perhaps making it harder for predators to digitally kidnap children, or raising the minimum age that kids can join the world’s largest social network?

Facebook didn’t respond to Yahoo Parenting’s request for comment, but during a public Q&A in December, Zuckerberg provided some advice to parents: Don’t ban social media. “I think sometimes society has a bit of an overbearing attitude, where we treat children as if they don’t know how to do stuff, when sometimes they’re more sophisticated than you could ever imagine,” he said. “I would want my children to use technology because it’s one of the ways that you become literate and develop the skills that you need to for the modern world.”

Still, the dad-to-be was clear about when his daughter would be allowed on the social network. “I would not allow my child under the age of 13 to use Facebook,” he explained. (Thirteen is currently the minimum age to join the site.) Once his child is old enough, Zuckerberg said, he will sit her down and discuss bullying and other cyberdangers.

Caroline Knorr, parenting editor of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting safe technology for children, says the timing of Zuckerberg’s news is a nice fit with the recent evolution of Facebook. “It’s great news that [Zuckerberg and Chan] are expecting,” she tells Yahoo Parenting. “Ironically, Facebook has been trending toward a more ‘millennial parent’ user base, with teens leaving for more instantaneous messaging services like Instagram, which Facebook owns, and parents remaining and sharing their lives over what used to be a sort of scary new medium.”

Since its start — when Zuckerberg was a college student — Facebook has significantly improved how it handles the dangers that accompany sharing one’s life online, especially for children, Knorr says. “Over the years, Facebook has made a lot of strides in responding to some of the issues it faced when social media was brand-new — namely, privacy and cyberbullying,” she says. “And while it may have been slow to catch on to the real concerns many parents had for their kids on Facebook, it has now introduced a Family Safety Center, a reporting tool on every post and photo, a Scrapbook photo-sharing feature that limits your audience, and increased transparency about who can view your posts. All of these innovations point toward a company that is more concerned about kids’ and parents’ safety. While it’s not perfect — cyberbullying, privacy concerns, facial recognition, and oversharing are still problematic — it seems that Facebook is very much considering the impact its features have on real people’s lives.”