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Summary

In this conversation, Adrienne and Sarah discuss the implications of sharenting, the practice of parents sharing content about their children online. They explore the journey of becoming a mom influencer, the dangers of oversharing, and the importance of consent and privacy for children. The discussion highlights the challenges parents face in navigating the digital landscape while maintaining their children’s rights and dignity. They also emphasize the need for balance in sharing personal stories and provide resources for parents to educate themselves on these issues.

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Read the Transcript:

Adrienne (00:00)
Hi everyone, welcome back to the show. I have Sarah here from mom uncharted on Instagram. She is here to talk to us about sharenting and exploiting kids online. Please give yourself a short little introduction, Sarah.

Sarah (00:13)
Yeah, so I am a married mom of two. I live in Vancouver, Canada and I talk online about a child’s right to privacy and how to keep our kids safe and the state of child exploitation as it relates to the influencing world and family vlogging.

Adrienne (00:29)
Okay, great. Do you know I’m on Vancouver Island? I didn’t realize you were in Vancouver.

Sarah (00:30)
No

Adrienne (00:29)
Yeah, that’s so funny.

Sarah (00:30)
You’re on Vancouver Island? No way. Yeah, I’m in Vancouver.

Adrienne (00:29)
That’s hilarious.

Sarah (00:30)
I don’t think we realized I thought you were like Pacific Northwest. I had thought that maybe you were, you know, Oregon or something like that.

Adrienne (00:56)
Okay. Let me tell you my story real quick. Cause I, this is so relatable and why your account really resonated with me, but I started these reveries early on in our homeschooling days. And it started as like one, I need a creative outlet and two, I just want to show and like document our homeschooling journey because everyone was asking about it. And so I started very innocently well-intentioned just filming my kids and what we were doing what we were up to day to day and it was cute and whatever. Didn’t think anything of it. And then eventually I started getting, you know, like more and more followers. And then I started getting brands who just would pop out and be like, Hey, we would love to send you this homeschooling like Montessori wooden clock would you in exchange for some photos or videos or let us know if you like it or blah, blah, blah. And I was like, really flattered. That’s super cool. And we’re getting this free stuff. And so I started filming my kids using these toys very genuinely. There was no, you know, threats, bribes, any of that going on. It was, Hey,

this company sent you this toy. Do you want to use it? Do you like it? Let me film this, make a reel blah, blah. Started putting that online and then it just like got bigger and bigger. We also travel as part of like our homeschooling lifestyle. And so then I started doing the same thing for travel and filming our kids and showing from a very innocent place. Hey, you can go to Morocco with your kids. Hey, you can.

have this travel life and people being like, my God, I never really thought of that or I never really, thanks for sharing that or whatever, right? Like very positive all around, thank you so much for documenting all of this, this is so inspiring or so helpful or whatever. Fast forward five-ish years, both of those accounts had grown to be pretty big and my whole calendar,

was brand collaborations. And that was my source of income that I had now built this career for myself, which allowed my husband to then work less and be at home more, and get us free hotels and Airbnbs to travel and have these experiences that we wouldn’t have otherwise had. And so I was looking at it as like, hey, I get to be at home with my kids.

Sarah (02:53)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne (02:56)
and make money with things that involve them and get us this stuff that we would otherwise Joe would be working to purchase, you know, these tents or whatever it was that we were being given. Then I started getting into why we were homeschooling in the first place. And we kind of moved into unschooling because I really didn’t like the idea of replicating what I was leaving, like we left school for a reason. I didn’t like the idea of replicating that at home. And so I started unpacking like, why are we doing this? And the idea of consent and autonomy really was at the crux of it all. Like I wanted my kids to have freedom and feel liberated and not confined to grades and report cards and rules and all these different things. And it’s inevitably got to this point where I was like, nothing of what’s happening here is consensual. Like, yes, they know that I’m taking photos. Yes, they did have the right to say, no, I don’t want you to film me right now. No, I don’t want to do photos right now. Let’s do it later, whatever. But nothing was consensual, but what’s going on, they were not involved in the contracts with these brand deals. They were not involved with what I was saying yes to or no to, they certainly didn’t have informed consent about being plastered all over the internet. And I started to realize like, my God, everything that I’m preaching about consent and bodily autonomy, I am like being so hypocritical about, even though it was from a very…

good natured place of like, Hey, this is, you know, I’m able to be at home with my kids or all these different things. And so I rage quit both of those accounts very quickly, which again, that stuff’s out there. like whether or not I deleted it, it is still out there somewhere, which is so just like heartbreaking. once you kind of get to this place of, kids really shouldn’t be content. They shouldn’t be online. and then I rebuilt.

Sarah (04:28)
Yep.

Adrienne (04:50)
the account that I have now, not using my kids faces or whatever. And it’s all about homeschooling and unschooling and the same things I was talking about before. It’s just not a brand anymore and not like a storefront of kids’ toys and clothing and all these different things. And so that’s really my story and my light bulb moment. And when I started following you, was like, thank God there’s like not enough people talking about this truly.

Sarah (05:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, it’s really like it’s a great story. It’s really admirable. I don’t think a lot of people could or would be willing to do that. However, I have seen a lot of mom influencers in particular move away from featuring their children as much, move away from talking about them. Maybe they’re not even shown anymore or they’re only shown from behind or occasionally. Like I do feel that there has been a shift over the past year or two.

Adrienne (05:19)
Yeah.

Sarah (05:44)
that people are saying, you know what, maybe we’ve taken this just too far.

Adrienne (05:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, and how did you get into this? Did you have a similar story? Or what is your background and how you got into talking about this?

Sarah (05:55)
Well, I definitely had a light bulb moment like yourself. So I became a mom in late 2017 and I had, you know, followed people on Instagram who were in my stage of life, getting pregnant, having babies and

Adrienne (06:00)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (06:12)
I thought, well, this is great. I can follow along. They can show me what I need, give me tips and tricks, feel like a sense of community. Even though I was just a ghost follower, I wasn’t like creating content. wasn’t commenting on anything. I was just kind of like watching and absorbing and maybe seeing a cute outfit or something. And I didn’t think much of it until the pandemic hit and I had a baby.

Adrienne (06:18)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (06:35)
and I was at home more and we’re all online more and just what I was seeing online started to really change the frequency of parents sharing. All of a sudden it felt that I was seeing kids, don’t know, wake up and go to school and get dressed. And I heard about their activities and their medical appointments and their diagnoses. And my light bulb moment was realizing, Whoa.

Adrienne (06:43)
Mm.

Sarah (07:02)
I’m a stranger. I should have no access to like this child and this information. Like only people that are in this child’s life that these parents know and trust. Those are the individuals who should be privy to all of this information about a child. And it was at that point I started discussing my thoughts with my friends and my family and my husband. And they say, you know, yeah, you seem really interested in this topic. Like, what are you going to do about it?

Adrienne (07:06)
Yeah.

Sarah (07:31)
On a whim, I downloaded TikTok and I started playing around with the app. I’d never been on social media really, so finding out how it worked and stuff. And every time I talked about the topics of sharenting and child exploitation and privacy, keeping kids safe, people seemed to really like be interested. And I would say I was definitely a polarizing figure when I came onto the scene and I don’t know, late 2021.

Adrienne (07:38)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (07:57)
I’m definitely a little more accepted these days, but yeah, and then mom uncharted just grew from there.

Adrienne (08:04)
Mm Well, yeah, and I love that title. What made you think of mom uncharted?

Sarah (08:08)
I thought about it because I didn’t know where exactly I was going with socials and the things that I wanted to talk about. We don’t really have a guidebook on like I’m, I’m interested in this digital world and raising and parenting within it. And there’s not really a lot of guidebooks that tell us how this is going to turn out. We don’t know. It truly is uncharted waters for parents. So I just felt that it was apropos.

Adrienne (08:12)
Mm.

Just as you were talking about seeing like the influx of probably a bunch of parents feeling bored during COVID and then doing what we what we do. And but it got me thinking about these birth announcements or these like first day of school announcements where you’re having the name of their school you’re having their full

Sarah (08:50)
Mm. Yep.

Adrienne (08:54)
name and birthdate and weight and length, like all of these things that are such personal, informative details, or, you know, filming, this is the park we go to all the time. And if someone really wanted to, if someone was sinister, how easy would it be for them to figure out exactly where we live and exactly what school our kids go to?

Sarah (09:15)
it’s so easy. There’s parents out there who are sharing their walk to school, who are sharing their pickups, who have the town they live in pinned, who are sharing their kids crest, their cheerleading uniforms and stuff like that. Parents are putting a lot of information out there. And I think that in regard to the full names and the birthdays and where they’re born and stuff like that, I don’t think a lot of

Adrienne (09:23)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (09:41)
parents realize that there are malicious people out there who are not like looking at your children and that information in a predatory way, but are looking at it in a way to gain access to their identity and to commit fraud. And if they have full names and dates of birth and all of this information, the rates of identity theft and fraud are going to skyrocket in the next few years for sure, because

Adrienne (09:55)
Mm. Right.

Sarah (10:08)
Parents who just put too much information, too much intimate personal information online.

Adrienne (10:12)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and if you look at where AI is going, that’s kind of what I was thinking of too, in the early days of me being like, well, my kids actually can’t consent to all of this being online. Even if I’m saying, Hey, is it okay if I photograph you? Hey, is it okay if I put this on Instagram? They don’t actually know what that means. I don’t actually know what that means. And you posted something the other day of AI, you know, people using photos and videos of our kids and

Sarah (10:31)
Yeah?

Adrienne (10:39)
AI can remove their clothes, AI can grow breasts, AI can make them say things, do things, and those videos, you again, are not just living in some creepy guy’s basement in the dark web. Like, it is now out there blackmailing the people, you know, and sending it to their friends or whatever. It is so far beyond, I think, what any of us imagined.

Sarah (10:58)

Of course, and it is so easily accessible. I think that’s one thing parents need to know. Like a lot of these AI apps and these Nudify apps, like it’s a click of a button on a phone. The problem is running rampant in middle schools and high schools with individuals doing this to classmates and sharing, you know, AI generated nude photos of them or worst case scenario, like the sextortion that is happening to specifically teenage boys.

Adrienne (11:13)
Mm-hmm.

Sarah (11:32)
online. Like there’s a there’s a lot happening online and it’s very easy for parents to feel overwhelmed by it but we have to remain informed and educated in attempt to like protect our kids, right?

Adrienne (11:32)

Yeah. Yeah,

I know. And I think so many parents just feel like they don’t want to believe that people are sinister out there. They don’t want to, you know, just fear monger their kids all the time, either. They don’t want to talk to their kids about the fact that pedophiles exist or that groomers exist. Like no one wants to have that conversation. And so you have things like I remember when my

Sarah (12:00)
No, of course.

Adrienne (12:07)
niece and nephew were showing me Snapchat and they’re like, it disappears. And I was like, okay, that’s kind of cool. And then you just don’t really think about it until you start going into it and you’re like, they have it disappear for a reason so that people can send nudes or you know, whatever. And then it gets, you don’t like living in this world where you then realize that so many things are actually built for very sinister reasons. No one wants.

Sarah (12:13)
Mmm.

Adrienne (12:33)
to admit that or acknowledge that, that that’s the world that we live in.

Sarah (12:34)

Well, and like the sinister reasons are also just one part of the problem, right? The rates of, you know, depression and anxiety and self harm and suicidal ideation amongst our youth and stuff like that. It is skyrocketing, right? What these devices and social media are doing to their sense of self, right? Like

Adrienne (12:44)
Mm.

Sarah (12:59)
I’m almost 40 years old and I go on social media and I struggle. I struggle with the reach of my videos and the comments and how I look. And it’s hard to quantify in your brain. And then you think about 11 or 12 year old on TikTok or Snapchat or Instagram and what their algorithm looks like and what people are saying. It is scary.

Adrienne (13:04)
Yeah.

Sarah (13:25)
These platforms weren’t built for children. And in my personal opinion, children should not be on them because they do not have the brain development or the sense of self to be able to combat everything coming at them in this online.

Adrienne (13:29)

Yeah, well, and even if you look at platforms that are built for children, but we know that they are built to be addicting and are like completely unregulated. So I talked to my son about that all the time because he’s like, like, this is so frustrating. I don’t like why can’t I do this? And I was like, buddy, you need to understand that these companies know exactly what they’re doing. They study human psychology, they study child psychology, they study dopamine, they literally build.

Sarah (13:52)
Yeah.

Adrienne (14:10)
these apps and video games, not every single one of them, but a lot of them to purposely get people addicted. And if you look at what was that documentary that came out on Netflix about, it was like the guy from Google and Pinterest and the social, no, that’s the one with Mark Zuckerberg.

Sarah (14:25)
the social dilemma.

Adrienne (14:29)
Yes, yes. And all of them were like, I’d never let my kids use any of these apps. And I think that’s pretty telling that you have the founders and creators or presidents or CEOs of these apps saying that they wouldn’t let their kids on there. That’s something that kind of makes you pay attention.

Sarah (14:36)
Yeah.

Well, exactly. They’re treating our kids as products, not people, right? Like they want them on these social media platforms, younger, for as long as possible. And it is, it’s scary. It’s scary. And it’s very overwhelming for parents.

Adrienne (14:44)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I’m glad you brought that up because I do like to always look at kind of both sides of everything and just sit with these truths that often feel contradictory. But one of them is like, I know that I have felt so connected to other parents who are talking about personal things about their kids, like their diagnoses, for example, right when and I know that I’ve got messages on the receiving end of that as well by people being like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing about this, about ADHD, about this other thing, because we’re going through that same thing and we’re navigating that same thing. And I always feel really torn there because I’m sharing that my middle child has this diagnosis and this is how we navigate it. And these are personal things about her life.

And it’s such a struggle as parents because my children make up 95 % of my day and my life. And so talking about them feels very natural. It feels very much like it’s also my story, but it’s also their story. And so where’s that line? And how do we, I’m not specifically, I just kind of rhetorical, but where’s that line and where, where do we limit that information? Cause that’s also how I felt.

Sarah (15:52)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Adrienne (16:13)
my village really grew of people around me and people that I follow of like, thank God someone understands me. Someone sees me, feels me. it’s, cause it’s so hard to just stay up here and talk about the abstract and just talk about like parenting up here when all the helpful stuff I find is the like details like, well at this age we did this, or we want to talk about literally what I did with potty training or with screen time or whatever and that makes it much more tangible and accessible.

Sarah (16:42)
I think for myself there, and I have seen many creators do this, there is the ability to talk about these things without ever utilizing our children as content or really talking too much about like intimate or personal details, right? know, teaching.

Adrienne (16:55)
Right.

Sarah (17:04)
Parents and talking about your tips and tricks for potty training and your struggles is very different than filming your child on the potty throughout the day and posting that right Offering tips on how to deal with a child with a recent ADHD Diagnosis is very different than filming that child moving throughout their day

Adrienne (17:13)
Right, Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah (17:27)
or you intervening in a tamper tantrum and having that online, right? Like I do believe, you I don’t want to silence women. I don’t think mothers should be silenced. I think there’s a lot of community and connection when we share and when we talk. I think it is important, but I think we have to be mindful with what we are sharing. And I think there is a way to go about it where there is a balance.

Sarah (17:53)
And I think one of that is verbally talking about things and not showing things. know, like I’ve seen a lot of, they’re usually referred to as autism moms, especially on TikTok. And they will film their child all day and their meltdowns and their high and low and every video is their child.

Sarah (18:17)
right? They’re not giving tips or tricks. It’s not about community. They have turned their child with a neurodivergency into their content. And oftentimes that child is being talked very poorly about in the comment section, right? So like, there’s certain accounts that are trying to educate, inform, bring connection and bring community. And then there are other accounts that are purely exploitative, in my opinion.

Adrienne (18:26)

Right, right, right. And I’m really like, we, think about the segment that Jimmy Kimmel does every Halloween where he gets parents to film their kids waking up on November 1st. And then he says, you know, the parents say, we ate all your Halloween candy and then they film their kids crying.

Sarah (18:51)
Yes, it’s funny because I did a video last year, maybe the year before, and on TikTok, it will show you videos you did in years prior. They’re called On This Day. And just today, On This Day, I did a video basically asking for a poll on do you think this is funny or do you not think this is funny and the majority

of people didn’t think it was funny. Now, granted, if it only went to my community, then it’s kind of like an echo chamber. don’t know if that’s like real, but I just have never under, seeing my child upset, seeing my child cry is a heartbreaking experience for a parent. And I just can’t relate to individuals who want to intentionally have their children cry in order to entertain strangers on the internet and get a few likes and get a few comments. I just don’t understand that parental mindset and let’s intentionally make my child upset, hopefully cry or have a temper tantrum on purpose to like get a dopamine hit to feel like and popular online. just I don’t think that’s great parenting

Adrienne (20:16)
Well, and what if we were doing that to our partners? Like, could you imagine if your husband was filming your most vulnerable moments and then posting it online to like, see if everybody laughs? Like one, it doesn’t actually matter if anyone thinks it’s funny, cause it’s not okay whether or not it gets high ratings on Kimmel or not. But two, I can’t even imagine Joe doing to me what I was doing to my kids and filming me in different outfits and try ons and playing, you know, or whatever, like in my natural habitat and having that camera in my face, it just would drive me crazy. And I think most people wouldn’t put up with it.

Sarah (20:47)

Well, and for some of these kids, especially those being raised in these family vlogging families, like that’s all they know. They’ve had a camera in their face since they exited the womb. Every moment, every day of their life can be used for content. You see the moms with the like ring light and the newborn footage and like my night as a new mom and things like that. Like these children are growing up in these environments where all they know is their parents looking at them through a screen and not into their eyes. And that’s extremely concerning. I think a lot of parents are really missing out on being present in their children’s lives by trying to capture everything all the time and use their children’s human existence as content on the internet.

Adrienne (21:23)
Right. I follow, I think she’s Diary of an Ex Influencer. I’ll, I’ll check it and then put it in the show notes, but she kind of was like that was a massive momfluencer and then quit and then started this account called Diary of an Ex Influencer and then just talked about all the ins and outs. And she definitely talked about how getting pregnant was like content gold. Like she knew that was dollar signs for her. If she could have more kids because you get babies, you get maternity stuff, you get, whatever.

And people love it. People consume it all day long and brands will collaborate with you. So like we’re seeing our children as dollar signs, which is just, there is no justification.

Sarah (22:13)
Yeah.

We’ve commodified and commercialized their childhood. A lot of people have. And in my personal opinion, it’s also not your child’s job to pay your mortgage. You know, it’s not a child’s job to pay their bills, especially when you’re removing inherent rights that you can never return to them. Like you can never return their anonymity and their privacy. You can never return that viral video, you can never return to them the Reddit thread about them and their, you know, speech development that is still online to this day. Like a lot of these parents are taking away so much from their children and they’re not thinking about the long term consequences and ramifications. And I don’t, I don’t think a lot of parents are doing this and oversharing with malicious intent. think a lot of

Adrienne (23:17)
Right.

Sarah (23:18)
it is lack of education, information, digital literacy, looking forward to the potential consequences and ramifications. And a lot of it is for selfish purposes.

Adrienne (23:23)

Yeah, well, and at this point, we don’t even know what the future ramifications and consequences are. you know, educate yourself as much as you want. I definitely encouraging people to do that. But with also the awareness that we don’t even know, like we’ve scratched the surface of what this can potentially mean for the future. So it’s most likely a lot more than what you could ever imagine.

Sarah (23:54)
I completely agree.

Adrienne (23:55)
Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on. there anything you want to leave with my audience of homeschooling parents who I again will say like I genuinely have such a problem with this industry in particular because homeschooling accounts are almost always built on filming their children at home. And so I find myself to be one of the few homeschooling, you know, influencing accounts that doesn’t plaster my kids on every single photo and video.

Sarah (24:15)
Well, we admire that. And I would leave people with the Kids Are Not Content website. So kidsarenotcontent.com. You can go there to learn more about this conversation. Why are we concerned about oversharing our kids? Why are we talking about child exploitation? Why does there need to be legislation to protect these kids and things like that?

Sarah (24:46)
If you’re interested in the topic, I highly suggest you go there for more information. if you have friends or family that are oversharing online and you’re not sure how to approach maybe your mother-in-law with the fact you don’t want to share your child online, it’s a great website to just kind of like send over to them quietly and say, know, like, check this out. This explains my thought process.

Adrienne (24:54)

Okay. Thank you so much for that resource. Thank you, Sarah. I really appreciate you and all your work.

Sarah (25:13)
Thanks for having me.

Adrienne (25:14)
No problem. Chat soon.