Dear influencer parents, stop misusing your kids

By La Patrona | 2mos ago | 3 min read

It is one thing to create a brand built on controversy and it is another thing to introduce people who did not choose to be part of that brand to your messy online persona. Celebrities give birth to children and the next thing a child is a content creator at two months. It would be okay if we didn’t exist in a judgmental society but that is where you are and it is pivotal for parents to move with that awareness.

I understand the capitalistic need to make money but there has to be some ethics to it. Before social media, parents raised their kids without turning them into content and money-making machines and they managed to make ends meet. No one needs a child to make money but social media influencers seem not to recognize that at all. There are brands that are safe for kids and as an influencer parent, you have to look at your brand keenly and determine if all that clout and controversy is the right environment to introduce your kid to in a world that does not have any scruples when it comes to trolling and bullying.

You can’t have created your brand out of sleeping with men for money, which is okay, and think your children are going to escape social media violence. You can’t be a man who is known for impregnating multiple women and think your children are going to be left alone when you put them out there. They will experience bullying in and out of social media and it will be because you exposed them to that.

Going to school meant getting into fights and experiencing bullying. The only difference is that this current generation of parents did not grow up with parents who put them on social media. You could have a deadbeat dad or a drunken mother and no one at school had that information. It was kept within the family but now we have parents who bully each other on YouTube channels while airing all their dirty linen on their Instagram stories for the world to see.

How do social media kids survive in school?

It is okay to vent and it is okay to want to get back at people who have hurt you but having children comes with a certain level of responsibility. I do not know how these social media kids survive in school at a time when the whole world is watching their mothers being called sluts on Twitter in real time. It is absolutely devastating to watch your paternity being questioned on different social media platforms and then go to school and have someone remind you that your mother cheated on your father to have you at break time.

Parents have to be conscious about putting the faces of their children on Instagram. It is cute. We love the photos but that content is coming at a very high price. These children did not choose the social media life. Your parents did not choose the social media life for you either. That is something you chose for yourself and we need to start giving our children the opportunity to decide if they want their lives out there or not.

Children need to grow in safe environments and social media isn’t one of them. There should be laws that govern how children are used for content creation because conscious adults have clearly failed at it. The desire to make money and to be popular outweighs the desire to protect children and that is how you know in a decade or so we are going to have more children talking about toxic parents.