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Original poster

So many kids growing up in the spotlight

128 replies

Greentrees2021 · 03/11/2021 22:24

I was pondering tonight how when I was young (80s) there were not a lot of famous kids. It's long been a belief that kids growing up in the public eye have a hard time of things e.g. the Royal kids, child actors etc.
But nowadays I'm starting to feel increasingly uncomfortable about how many children I know from social media and I could tell you infinitely more things about these kids than I ever could have about Macauly Culkin. I wonder if sometimes the parents regret that they started posting about their kids when they were cute babies with the future seeming far away in the distance but now they can't take it back.
For example, the McFly families. It felt like they started posting cute things about their kids as byproducts of their parenting journeys. But now the kids are older, very recognisable and so much of their childhoods have been documented and shared. How do parents undo this? It feels like once you've started down this road, you can't take it back.
I was a very shy child and would have absolutely hated my parents to share things about me with the world. Are we heading to a future with a lot of children who will have been damaged by this?

OP posts:

SarahAndQuack · 03/11/2021 22:29

I'm sure people felt the same back when cheap cameras meant it was relatively easy to take family snaps.

I wouldn't worry about it.

StrychnineInTheSandwiches · 03/11/2021 22:31

25 years from now there are going to be a lot of young adults speaking out about how their childhoods were monetised at the expense of their privacy and ownership of their own image. There was a Commons committee discussing this subject the other day. Their focus on child labour laws was interesting. These kids haven't agreed to this work but they're pushed into it anyway.

VickyPollardsTracksuit · 03/11/2021 22:35

I hate it. Famous families showing their children in private moments is unnecessary, filming if they get in a mood or when they get told they are having a sibling shouldn’t be shared with 265k followers.

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Families

NewbieAlert · 03/11/2021 22:43

I dislike it to, especially the you tube families where every single moment is filmed and out online. Their birthday party, their holiday, their halloween, even their first day at school.
Gosh even worse are the ones forced to act out “we are afraid of the game master” or “we go to toy school” or “isn’t this shitty product that I’m being paid to promote amazing”.
They get no privacy and I imagine are filming most days.
Shame.

Original poster

Greentrees2021 · 03/11/2021 22:43

@StrychnineInTheSandwiches That's very interesting, I hadn't considered it that way.

I think one thing that made me sit up and think the other day was I saw someone had set up an Instagram fan account reposting all pictures of Zoe Sugg's new baby. I felt sorry for her- she has clearly made £millions from social media but she started all this in her teens and now as a new mother she is on this path where people think they have rights to constant info & photos about her weeks old baby. That baby is their own person and it feels very wrong.

OP posts:

Sparklingbrook · 03/11/2021 22:45

I have way more respect for the slebs that keep their DC out of it. Davina McCall-I have no idea what her children look like, but Davina herself is a regular on social media.
Ellie Goulding had a baby and we've never seen a single picture of him.

OrangeCinnamonCocktail · 04/11/2021 00:00

Somehow I feel those that have grown up as Instagram/youtube stars will have it much worse as adults rather than the celeb children. It is all horrid for them anyway but there are certain YouTube families who have monetized their children's childhoods...what will happen when their fans lose interest or they get too old? The source of income will be gone. There are no labour laws for these kids either.

Sparklingbrook · 04/11/2021 20:22

@OrangeCinnamonCocktail

I wonder that too. I would imagine once some of the children get to a certain age they'll say enough is enough.

VladmirsPoutine · 04/11/2021 21:04

Hopefully they'll have enough money to get therapy. Of course I do think nothing is sacred in the age of social media but I've said this a million times: I'd much rather be repairing my damaged mental health / anxiety / life / whatever from a mansion in Cannes than a bedsit in Scunthorpe.

NuffSaidSam · 04/11/2021 21:11

I hate it. There should be a law against monetising children in that way.

But then I think there are so many of them maybe it will just be normal to them? McCauley Culkin was such a one off it must have been so hard for him to fit in with his peers. The social media kids are part of a massive club. Maybe it will be the kids who aren't on YouTube telling their therapist about how their parents didn't even love them enough to monetize their childhood!

Selkiesarereal · 04/11/2021 21:13

I was actually pondering this very thing today when I saw yet another picture of Brooklyn Beckham with his fiancé, his whole life has been in camera and now his wedding is being monetised.

wheresmyhairytoe · 04/11/2021 21:43

The Instagram "influences" who film every moment of their child's lives sicken me.

There's a certain mummy one, don't know if I can name her, who shares the most intimate details of her kids and step kids lives, periods, sanitary wear, trouble at school, anxiety issues, meltdowns of a toddler with clear SEN which she just laughs about. Always moaning the kids are "up her arse hole". They're going to have serious problems when they're older.
You can't criticise as she just screams "troll".

Greysofa · 04/11/2021 22:04

@wheresmyhairytoe

The Instagram "influences" who film every moment of their child's lives sicken me.

I know exactly who you mean and I think it’s appalling she gets away with what she does in many ways, but especially around those kids. People know the in’s and out’s of their lives, and the kids are rolled out for advert after advert. Vile, horrible woman who unfortunately has a following who cling on her very word and don’t dare question the holes in her stories!

NatriumChloride · 04/11/2021 23:29

Well now you have to say who she is!

Skysblue · 05/11/2021 00:05

If children’s photos are used commercially without their consent, it affects them psychologically when they’re old enough to understand that they were exploited. May also narrow career options.

There was a guy at my uni who was relentlessly mocked over an advert he as in at age ten, I doubt he thought it worth it.

I think there will be a lot more of this type of thing

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-58327844

Lockdownbear · 05/11/2021 00:20

@SarahAndQuack

I'm sure people felt the same back when cheap cameras meant it was relatively easy to take family snaps.

I wouldn't worry about it.

The big difference is with a camera the photos were developed, shown to Granny and your mums pals and put in the back of a cupboard.

Anything on the Internet can be found years later, who wants their colleges pals finding their baby photos?

Film was pricy people didn't waste photos on crying upset children, they wanted good photos. Now photos are free so it doesn't matter if the photo is mantelpiece worthy or not.

Sparklingbrook · 05/11/2021 00:28

I agree. There’s a massive difference between getting your family snaps developed by Truprint to show family and sticking stuff on the internet for all the world to see.

SarahAndQuack · 05/11/2021 11:08

I do know what you mean, and I agree it's certainly not ok to put just anything on social media. But what I'm getting at is that people always worry about stuff like this, whatever the new technology is. But you can't turn back time or isolate yourself from reality. Yes, this generation of children are going to grow up with it having been fairly normal for pictures to be widely shared. But that's just the point - it will be normal. I don't think people will be embarrassed by it.

It's like when there was a fashion in the 90s for digging out really embarrassing family photos at someone's wedding, and you'd all see the one of the groom as a newborn lying naked on a rug, or the bride aged 3 scowling on holiday.

No one is really shamed by those photos because everyone has them, or something like them.

thevassal · 05/11/2021 11:25

I agree op. I feel for shiloh, Angelina and brads daughter. Since she's been realky young random people have been discussing her clothes and hair, whether she is trans, non binary etc, shouting at others for dead naming her....then she starts dressing more typically feminine and grown adults write and read multiple articles about that...shes just a kid experimenting with what she likes, but for the rest of her life she's going to have to deal with people asking her very personal questions about her gender identity just because of the haircut she had when she was ten!

I notice as well that often the very famous celebs don't post pics of their kids and it's the lower c, d list influences that do it. I couldn't tell you what Kate Winslet or adeles kids look like or even what sex they are, for example. Obviously exceptions in both categories (the beckhams, willises, kardashians etc) but many of the very famous seem to concentrate just on themselves and their talent rather than expanding "the brand" to include their whole family whether they want to be included or not!

Sparklingbrook · 05/11/2021 11:29

No one is really shamed by those photos because everyone has them, or something like them.

But they aren’t all over the internet forever. You can’t tear them up and bin them. That’s the huge difference.
You can dig them out of the box in the loft and put them right back in there.

Plastering your children’s pictures all over social media is not normal.

CandyRoses · 05/11/2021 11:31

It’s really bad. I won’t name the accounts but I used to follow one with parents of multiples. It was before I had kids myself. Then I stopped as realised it is so horribly intrusive. People are literally watching these children being put to bed every night, in the bath, a phone is being stuck in their face for live filming at any moment to make money. Horrible. I don’t think it will be long until they put more rules in place though.

I have a small amount of friends on Facebook and I post the odd photo but I am very careful about what I share.

Sparklingbrook · 05/11/2021 11:33

Ellie Goulding posted a picture on Instagram of herself with her baby this week.
She was holding him with his back to the camera and he was wearing a coat and woolly hat, but she stated how nervous it made her.
Very refreshing.

bizboz · 05/11/2021 11:35

I expect in a few years when some of these kids have grown up some will try to sue their parents for invasion of privacy (I don't know the legalities on this).

Sparklingbrook · 05/11/2021 11:35

This is what she said-

She said: ‘I have chosen not to expose him to the world on social media. I feel quite strongly about this (I believe it is his decision when he is older!),’ and revealed she has even ‘had people try to take photos of him now and then … and I have politely asked if they could not’.

She continued: ‘I am extremely protective over him as any mother would be.’

lnsufficientFuns · 05/11/2021 11:39

It’s total bullshit

I hate it

My children are entitled to privacy and I haven’t posted them online for years

They understand why as well - they don’t feel unloved or insecure because I don’t stick their photos up everywhere

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