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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?

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searchinginsurrey · 24/11/2021 12:26

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Blossom192 · 24/11/2021 12:29

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CharlotteMaytimes · 24/11/2021 12:38

@SarahAndQuack Maybe this is where I and a lot of the posters are finding a point of disagreement with you: “I do not believe that children will be psychologically damaged by the sharing of lots of photos, because (as I've said), I think it's become normal and society adapts to cope with norms quite well.

It’s a bit disingenuous - we’re not comparing the scandalous invention of books/radio/television and how people worried about the Youth, but saying a basic human right that has been proven again and again in research to be an important cornerstone in good mental health, ie. privacy, is being breached as a matter of course by these people on social media. It doesn’t matter how many viewers they’ve got, it doesn’t matter if they’re a woman or a man, it doesn’t matter if they’re monetising it successfully or not. The point is that, whether or not the children feel “shame” in three or five or ten years about what is shown to the public now, they will be damaged by having a parental figure film and publish them in vulnerable, private moments. It’s not really a debatable point about social norms and tech changes. It’s about recognising human rights and respecting them, regardless of tech and social trends.

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