Scrolling through Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, or any other version of social media, you can find someone of any age on your screen. You’re also bound to find the ups and downs of people’s daily lives. You can see parents posting their lives with their kids, showing them making slime or playing on the playground. It’s an innocent concept that can be portrayed in the correct way. But this kind of content can slowly progress to reveal the more intimate parts of family life like videos of their kids crying and getting disciplined.
When parents put their children’s lives on the internet, they open themselves up for criticism. Viewers who watch these videos either perceive the parenting skills shows on screen as correct, or completely disagree. Posting any kids means there are precautions that have to be taken to make sure these kids are safe and comfortable on the internet. Parents who post their lives on social media need to realize when they take it too far.
When viewers like and share a post, they are subsequently validating what these parents are doing and allowing them to continue to exploit the growth of their children for profit. When the views begin to rack up, these parents will only want to reveal more about themselves and their children for the sake of a click. On channels like “8 Passengers,” parents Ruby and Kevin Franke would post about their extreme parenting styles, and for a while, the internet thought they were the perfect family. After a few years, the unsettling truth of how this truly affected their children came out. Ruby was arrested for child endangerment and abuse due to not feeding her kids and locking them in rooms for unknown amounts of time, after her 12-year old son Russell escaped from their home and called the police.
Is it too far when you’re posting your children’s most vulnerable moments, like their breakdowns and fits? Is it too far when you are posting about your child’s bras? Is it too far when your children stop speaking to you when they turn 18? It seems as though these parents on the internet make posting every nook and cranny of their lives the most important thing, even over their children’s feelings and safety.
The internet and its users keep giving family channels platforms when they post the messy, dirty truth of their, and their children’s, lives. Viewers can’t look away from the inside scoop into other people’s lives. Our society likes to nitpick everything others do and compare it to our own lives, and family channels are the perfect outlet to do so. To prevent this phenomenon from spreading, we need to de-platform parents like Ruby and Kevin Franke that outwardly exploit their children. Showing your child’s private and embarrassing life shouldn’t be a trend.
