Instamums 4

[mammyoftwo]

Following on from Instamums 3.2

Sorry for typos

Sofia, a child might enjoy the freebies but they won't fully understand the implications of the loss of their privacy until they are an adult. We actually don't yet know what the long term outcomes are going to be - but the rising levels of anxiety in society correlate with the use of social media, so it doesn't look good.

Many celebrities have private, locked down social media to share photos with family and friends? Problem solved for instamums.

bijoubijou - completely agree. I am still affected by my mum telling me how bloody hard she found me as a baby - breastfeeding, crying, wilful as a toddler, making life harder for her when my little brother came along. I feel guilty about it and she told me that in private and with the best intentions. Can't imagine how t would feel hearing that via a monetised YouTube video with thousands of views

I'm certain if I explained to my 11 year old daughter that we had been offered a trip to Disney in return for posting pics (including her) on insta she'd be happy to do that. She would fully understand that the photo's would potentially be seen by huge numbers of people.

Very small kids obviously can't give an opinion, MOD's older girls look old enough to understand and to say if they do or don't want their photo's taken and featured.

Really sofia - so your 11 year old would be aware of your registration as a director on companies house and the need to lodge accounts each year again with your home address (WTF - why not at least your accountants' address as your registered office) and would be aware that this is public information. So any weirdo could link her face to that address. And she would be fully cognoscent kfntbe risks involved. I don't think so and I think any responsible parent would and should be much more concerned about that than getting a free ride at Disney Land

Sofialemon is your comment for real? Surely that is just a troll post.
Perhaps initially the family pics were just that but they are now the money and the accounts revolve around them. Where in any other form of 'fame' are children exploited rather than protected?
And the older girls thought mummy and daddy paid to take them to Disney, they had no idea it was a gift.
So how will that go down when another kid says your mum and dad didn't even pay for that, they got that because your baby sisters are cute. Etc etc. You are just assuming they will be happy and grateful. Maybe you are right.
There's a world of difference between sharing a photo of your kid in a Boden dress you like and living off the back of your off spring, especially when you both have very good professions. Just shows how lucrative it is.

Kitkat shut up, clearly just hoping that a real instamum will see you fighting for them on this thread and promote you or whatever

Nah, an eleven year old is still a baby in the scheme of things. A child doesn't have the capacity to understand how their loss of childhood privacy may impact their future employment, relationships, friendships and mental health.

I've found by about 25 my children have the critical thinking skills to fully comprehend important issues and consequences - our brains are still developing until 25 years of age so that makes sense.

Plus any poster who conflates their own Facebook account with an account with hundrednds of thousands of followers who can link that account to oublicslly accessible documents on companies house and find out home addresses etc clearly really does not get this at all and can't even identify the risk let alone quantify it

I don't think these threads are bullying, or toxic in any way.

If someone burst into tears because a stranger said their kids are boring they need to either toughen up or come out of the game. You can't have all the perks of fame without taking the shit parts too.

@InternetSchminternet exactly I don’t think they realise every thing they say and do is there forever and it can affect their children later in life. The thing is if they did one video or one post about it I could forget about and put it down to ‘oh there story is trying to help somebody’ but they seem to go on and on and on and I just think your just wanting money now and it’s not fair when it is discussing a child and how bad you have it with him/her.

Gobbolin my husband is self employed, the company is listed as is our address. My husband is fairly well known in the area we live (through work, not in a celeb way).

My husband isn't on Facebook but I do post pics of him with my children so someone could easily find out who she is, where we live etc. Obviously we're not famous and I don't have thousands of followers but I suppose friends of friends who I've never met could know quite a lot about me.

Personally this really doesn't bother me, not because I'm stupid but because if I worried about stuff like that I'd be worrying about everything. Life's too short.

I wouldn’t expect my child at 11 to understand that a sponsored trip to Disney comes at a price ie. lack of privacy. No matter how much this money elevates their lifestyle, it can’t be worth it. Let them be children, privately.

You can set your FB settings so that only your own friends can see your photos, rather than friends of friends.

One of several recommendations from UNICEF, following extensive research and expert advice: “Safeguard children’s privacy and identities online” (www.unicef.org/media/media_102303.html)

Mumofkids how do you know MODs kids though their parents paid for the trip? They may well have, I've no idea, but how do you know?!

I honestly don't think my 11 year old would care. If I could earn more than I do now by monetising my insta account and also be gifted lovely things and free holidays I'd seriously consider it. I'd ask my kids their views but given that their pics are all over my Facebook (they know this) with nothing in return I really don't think they'd mind.

Alistair I'm well aware of that but I know I've sat with friends looking at their friends profiles. I doubt I'm the only one to have done this. I doubt any content uploaded to any social media site is really secure anyway.

But there’s a reason children don’t get given the vote or get to choose if they are educated or not - they don’t actually have the critical capacity to do so and therefore the adults responsible for them should act in their best interests. I appreciate that for Sofia that would still not alter what you did as you don’t judge the behaviour of the instamums to not be in their best interests. But the argument that a child wouldn’t mind something and therefore it’s not a problem doesn’t make sense.

So why don't you monetize your account and start blogging freebies? Many of us could but are fully aware there are consequences

MY husband and I are both self-employed. Like sensible people, we ensure that our companies' registered addresses are at our accountants and our professional registrations are at our practices. Anyone who doesn't do that is not taking sensible and reasonable precautions to protect their privacy and that of their family's.

I have been following these threads and have been a little bit shocked by some of the comments directed particularly at MOD. I do follow MOD/FOD, MP, CT, theunmumsymum etc BUT I do try to unfollow those that I don’t actually like. I unfollowed thescummymummies and theyesmummum for example because they didn’t do anything for me. I did very nearly unfollow MOD/FOD off the back of the first of these threads in September I think it was, but I don’t mind them too much.

Personally, I’m a bit too unimpressionable to be bothered by things like the ads, because they don’t work on me. DP and I were discussing ad placement in films etc and he was surprised that I just didn’t notice. I do however appreciate that lots of people are and I do think things should be correctly hashtagged. I wouldn’t even mind a big AD sign edited on to the post like I saw MP do this week!

I have an account and a blog called theanonymum and started out anonymously because I was a teacher. I talk about mental health, my toddler DS and food intolerances and I get a bit worked up over feminism and politics sometimes. I’ve found it to be a really supportive place but again, I do try to be vigilant in unfollowing people that make me feel bad about myself, because I’ve struggled/do struggle with my own MH issues.

I never post my face and never share our names. I do post about where I live because it’s beautiful and it’s a big focus of our lives, but I don’t talk specifically about where I live. Up until Christmas I only used back of head shots or non identifiable shots of my DS, and this thread has made me question whether I should go back to doing just that. I’m going through my feed now in fact! So thank you for the food for thought.

"Shut up? "Yawn?
There's some really eloquent posters on here. Not.
This whole thread's just an excuse to go all Mean Girls under the guise of "won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!" isn't it...
You're not interested in discussion at all, that much is evident when somebody posts something sensible.

I honestly don't think my 11 year old would care.

Is that the critical benchmark is it?

My 2 year old couldn't give a stuff now if I let her eat sweets til her teeth dropped out. I think in future she might. My 5 year old would be thrilled if he didn't need to go to school every day and I just let him drop out. I think at 30 he might have quite different views. My 4 year old would really prefer if I didn't force her to finish her antibiotics but at a later age when her hearing is compromised due to scar tissue from yet another perforated ear drum wouldn't be quite so happy.

The whole point of being a parent is to assess and quantify risk on behalf of vulnerable children who don't have the life experience to do it themselves.

Alison Perry’s response is very measured. I unfollowed her after she compared influence marketing to TV and print ads on another Instagram post because I thought she didn’t get it at all, but she sounds like she’s been listening to some of the valid arguments on this thread and taking them on board. I’m impressed with how she handles herself on that thread. CLTS and Fashion Lift are both very opaque especially about gifting so they will obviously like something that validates their standpoint. It’s another “f*ck the haters” post dressed up as a motivational speech. Boring now.

Stellar because I live a totally boring non insta worthy day to day life. I couldn't be bothered to "create content". I don't need the freebies as nice as it would be to have them.

I actually think it must be hard work and very time consuming to keep your insta account fresh and relevant.