Deciding how much of your life you want to share publicly with strangers on social media is challenging – especially when kids are involved. Although many parents enjoy posting humorous videos of their kiddos, not everyone feels comfortable with it. One dad is actually rethinking his relationship with his girlfriend because she wants to be an “Instagram mom” and get their kids involved in content creation.
Venting about his frustrations on Reddit in a post that has since been deleted, the dad, 24, explained that he and his girlfriend, also 24, welcomed twins together when they were 17 years old. Now that the twins are 7 years old, the mom has fallen in love with the idea of becoming a mom influencer, or momfluencer.
The mom has already started creating content.
She’s already started trying to make this dream a reality. According to the dad, his girlfriend “started posting more pics of the kids,” along with “cute voiceover reels” and “day in the life’ stuff.” At first, he didn’t have an issue with it.
The dad admitted that the social media content seemed relatively “harmless” at first. His perspective began to change, however, once his girlfriend started talking about “building a brand” and making “real money.” When framed that way, the dad became less comfortable with the idea of their twins’ lives being “broadcasted” on social media.
He thinks his girlfriend is treating their kids like social media ‘content.’
Explaining why he’s not comfortable with his girlfriend being a momfluencer, the dad said he wants their kids to have privacy and “a real childhood.”
His girlfriend sees it differently. According to her, this is the way things are now, and so many other families document their kids’ experiences on social media. “She brought up how other families do it, how much sponsorships pay, how ‘cute’ our twins are, and how it’s ‘just pictures,'” the dad explained.
To him, it’s much more than that, especially because their kids are too young to understand. “It’s not just pictures,” he wrote in his post. “It’s their lives. And they don’t even understand what it means to have strangers watching them.”
Their differing opinions sparked an argument.
Although the dad sounds concerned about their kids’ safety and well-being, his girlfriend is frustrated that he’s being “controlling” and “not supporting her dreams.” In response, he told her he had no desire to support this particular dream of hers.
“I told her if her dream involves monetizing our kids’ faces, then yeah—I’m not on board,” he said. He even added that he’s “seriously considering ending things” because of it.
Some of the couple’s friends have sided with the mom. According to them, the dad is being dramatic and “missing a chance to ‘secure their future.'” Meanwhile, he feels like he is prioritizing his kids’ future by protecting it.
Many Redditors sided with the dad.
Obviously, lots of parents share photos and videos of their kids online. But a lot of other people think it’s a terrible idea.
“She’s supposed to be protecting those babies, too, and putting them on the screen has been proven time and time again not to do so,” one Redditor responded. “Keep your feet down on this. They’re kids, not money makers.”
Another Redditor added, “Your children can’t know the implications of what they are agreeing to even if their mom is trying to convince them it’s a fun idea.”
One person pointed out that the twins’ mom sounded “extremely selfish” for not considering how content creation “would affect their lives.”
“Even extremely popular celebrities don’t parade their kids around in the public eye,” the commenter pointed out. “That’s because they understand the harsh reality of that world, the scrutiny and weirdness of being a public figure is not something that can be reversed.”
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
