Loved this read Jade. I began thinking about this a lot when I realised I was recognising the children of local influencers out and about in our local towns. Felt so strange to know so much about them when I had never met them or their parents in real life (and scary, too!). Like what they ate in their school lunchboxes and when they last had a tantrum. I started unfollowing all the mumfluencers / family grams which were purely about sharing their family lifestyle. Even so, years on, I still recognise their kids around town even though they’re now older. I appreciate all the parents and mothers who share about the experience of parenthood without sharing their children’s faces or personal details — like your essays. Perhaps that’s it, making sure our sharing centres our experience and not the lives of our kids … if that distinction makes sense … and recognising that it is hard when our identities feel completely dissolved by motherhood. I say all this with the complete acknowledgment that I have shared images of my boys in the past but have decided not to anymore.
It is very layered and the spectrum is vast. As in it is from a 'norm' person/parent sharing a cute shot of their child (tagging no brands etc) and purely for the sake of sharing how cute they are or how proud they are of them to then flooding their feed with images and tags, tagging brands, filming videos, having kids take part in campaigns or gifted/sponsored content to creating a social media page for your child, them becoming a child star etc.
I think we have to be really honest with ourselves about the agenda behind what we post and share and more importantly I think Meta needs to take responsibility and be accountable for what they have created and the dark side that they continue to allow to thrive on their platforms for profit.
Loved this read Jade. I began thinking about this a lot when I realised I was recognising the children of local influencers out and about in our local towns. Felt so strange to know so much about them when I had never met them or their parents in real life (and scary, too!). Like what they ate in their school lunchboxes and when they last had a tantrum. I started unfollowing all the mumfluencers / family grams which were purely about sharing their family lifestyle. Even so, years on, I still recognise their kids around town even though they’re now older. I appreciate all the parents and mothers who share about the experience of parenthood without sharing their children’s faces or personal details — like your essays. Perhaps that’s it, making sure our sharing centres our experience and not the lives of our kids … if that distinction makes sense … and recognising that it is hard when our identities feel completely dissolved by motherhood. I say all this with the complete acknowledgment that I have shared images of my boys in the past but have decided not to anymore.
It is very layered and the spectrum is vast. As in it is from a 'norm' person/parent sharing a cute shot of their child (tagging no brands etc) and purely for the sake of sharing how cute they are or how proud they are of them to then flooding their feed with images and tags, tagging brands, filming videos, having kids take part in campaigns or gifted/sponsored content to creating a social media page for your child, them becoming a child star etc.
I think we have to be really honest with ourselves about the agenda behind what we post and share and more importantly I think Meta needs to take responsibility and be accountable for what they have created and the dark side that they continue to allow to thrive on their platforms for profit.