Sharenting – Are we exploiting our kids online?

Rhiannon Boyle - 24 May 18

There’s been a lot of talk of ethics on Instagram over the last few weeks and a mad moral panic concerning ‘sharenting’. Big influencers like the wonderful Mother Pukka only last month wrote a well informed, thought provoking blog post (see here) on the subject and shockingly one of the most popular Instamums, Clemmie Hooper has recently been branded ‘exploitative’ and ‘hypocritical’ for her stance on things.

But why?

What with all this talk of data protection and the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into play this week it seems that everyone has started freaking out about what information is put out there online. I mean, only the other day I received a consent form from my kid’s primary school telling me if I wanted to keep receiving texts from them I’d need to sign and date the relevant paper work and give my full consent anew. I’m not being funny, but I’m hardly going to report the school to the GDPR police if they text asking me to bake cupcakes for the PTA bake sale for Christ sake.

Over exposing my children on the Internet is something I’ve been thinking about a lot since setting up my blog. Mainly because I created social media accounts (public not private) to promote it.

Just the other day I took a picture of my four-year-old at the breakfast bar, doing a Pokémon jigsaw.

‘Are you going to Instagram it?’ She asked.

I was a bit taken aback. I didn’t know she even knew what Instagram was. So I asked her.

‘It’s when you put your pictures on the Internet.’ she said.

Wow. You’re pretty switched on, I thought.

As I watched her completing the one hundred piece, age five plus jigsaw, I pondered entering us into Britain’s Brainiest Family. I decided to test her intelligence further.

‘Who is Donald Trump?’ I asked.

She looked skyward and gave it a few seconds thought.

‘The presenter of South America?’ she answered.

Hmmm. Maybe too tough.

‘What is the capital city of Wales?’ I tried.

‘Coffi Cwtch?’ (a small Café we sometimes go to), she said.

Ok so, maybe I wont be contacting Mensa just yet.

Question:

So she knows the words ‘Instagram’ and ‘Internet’, but does she actually grasp what they are, and what they are for?

Answer:

No. Definitely not.

Which is why I’ve decided to be very careful when it comes to putting my innocent, naïve, ‘no real concept of what the internet is’ children out there.

This is where I stand (I’ve taken my lead from Fearne Cotton with the ‘no faces’ thing, even though she is really famous and has 2.1 million followers and I am not famous at all and only have 600 followers, but still)…

• No faces
• No names
• Age but never reveal their birthdays
• No pics of the front of our house or our road
• No pics of school uniform or their school
• Never tag our location
• No naked, swimwear & no underwear pics
• No degrading images or stories

But what is degrading? This is subjective. No?

Surely, some things are blatantly degrading though. Right? For example it always baffles me when Instagramers post pictures of their kids on the toilet or the potty taking a dump.

Eeeeewww!! For f*ck sake!

Nobody wants to see that!!! Even if they are in a Batman costume looking super cute and you think it’s totally hilar.

Stop and think!

Would you post a picture of your husband taking a dump? Your mother? No. Would you post a picture of yourself taking a dump? Exactly. Surely your child is not going to be happy with this in ten years time.

And by the way, I am judging. My judgement is – all parents who post pictures of their kids sh*tting must be arrested and put in prison. Immediately.

Emine Saner wrote a great piece for the Guardian this week, ‘The ‘sharent’ trap – should you ever put your children on social media?’ In it we learn a few key things must come into play, when we are thinking of sharing information about our kids publicly online.

Before posting consider…

• Respect – Is the content appropriate? Are you treating your kids with dignity? Will they be annoyed, embarrassed or anxious by what you have posted in years to come? Will they ask you to remove the content?
• Consent – Even though kids are too young to give consent (in my opinion) it is widely agreed by experts that having a conversation with your children and asking for their consent is essential.
• Safety – Are you compromising their safety? Locations, school uniforms and naked pictures, amongst other things, all compromise their safety. Probably best to keep stuff like that private.

People may argue that telling a story about my six-year-old bashing herself in the clitoris last month was undignified and embarrassing (find post here). I don’t think it was, or otherwise I wouldn’t have written and posted it. But do you think it was? And more importantly will she think it is, when she’s fifteen?

So, by posting that story about my six year old am I guilty of exploiting my kids online?

By featuring offspring on their feeds/in adverts are the Insta giants guilty of exploiting their kids online?

It may be interesting to note here, that a lot of influential Instagramers think that the people opposed to over exposing kids, are in the minority. Not so. If we look at the recent report for the London School of Economics (LSE) project Preparing for a Digital Future, we can see that only 3% of parents share pictures of their children on public websites such as an open Instagram account. However, with ‘sharenting’ we have a tribe of Kylie Jenners and Binky whatsherfaces all sharing away because, hey everyone else is doing it, all safe and secure in the unchallenging, non-judging, virtual echo chamber they inhabit.

So are these influencers exploiting their kids or not?

Exploitation is such a strong and emotive word. It can also be pretty subjective. If we look at the meaning – ‘to make use of (a situation) in a way considered unfair or underhand’ this surely is a good place to start.

So…

• Is featuring your kids in adverts unfair or underhand?
• Is including your kids in posts to gain more followers or get more ‘likes’ unfair or underhand?
• Is it fair or underhand to post without their consent?

Hmmmm… Let’s talk about the C word?

How much should we be worrying about consent? The kids don’t really have a say in any of this do they? Even if they are seven and you ask them if they mind being on your feed, they are not really capable at that age (in my opinion) of making that sort of decision are they? I mean, mine find it difficult enough to decide Shreddies or Weetabix of a morning.

So what does the future hold? In years to come are we going to get reams of Insta famous kids suing their 500k followers strong Insta parents for a breech of their privacy and a violation of their human rights?

Maybe.

Like child stars of days gone by, are these over exposed Insta kids (who were featured in ‘in partnership with’ #ads), going to take their parents to court in order to be paid a cut of those advertising fees that are rightfully theirs?? Mini, mixed-up little Macaulay Culkin’s popping up all over the shop because they didn’t give their consent to be used in an Instagram advert for scented nappy bags?? The ASA have clear rules and guidelines with regards to featuring children in adverts but social media seems to be a bit behind here.

It’s such uncharted territory.

Maybe I’m overthinking things here. I have always been a worrier, and it’s always the things we worry about the most that end up never amounting to anything. Right?

I mean is posting a picture of your kid in their St David’s day costume on a public Instagram profile any different to when pictures of us were published in the Daily Post for thousands (ok, maybe hundreds) to see when we were kids?

Is featuring a pic of your kid on the loo sh*tting, any different to your mum passing around a picture album at a dinner party of you with your peggy out in the paddling pool when you were six? Or telling that story of when your brother shoved a battle ship up your crack, in the bath, when you were a baby? (My mum tells that one… a LOT!)

Is any of this any different?

Not really.

With regards to featuring kids in adverts, is it really exploitative? Just as some parent’s kids are models, or feature on TV shows such as Britain’s Got Talent, some parents will choose to feature their children in Instagram adverts. There are financial gains involved, which will obviously benefit the whole family. So is that really a negative thing?

Surely it’s personal choice and preference. We are all just doing what we think is the best for our children after all.

So, as long as we all use careful consideration, weighing up the pros and cons along with a bit of common sense, before publicly posting anything featuring our kids, then surely that’s a good place to start.

Whatever happens, I think all this talk has to be seen as a positive as it has really made people think. Hopefully it will make parents take better care before featuring kids on their feeds, and if that means we never have to see a pic of a toddler taking a sh*t on a potty again then I’m all for that!!

***No children were over exposed in the writing of this blog post***

Rhiannon Boyle

Hi, I’m Rhiannon. I live in Cardiff. I’m a wife and a mum to two beautiful girls who are 7 & 5. I’m a part time freelance writer/part time stay at home mum.

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