Attitudes towards social media are changing. Parents who once cheerfully posted images of their children online are grappling with new concerns around safety, identity theft, informed consent and AI.
Here parents share the stories of their evolving social media usage.
‘I don’t feel right sharing information if he doesn’t want to share it himself’
Melissa Carton is the mother of two children, aged 13 and eight. She works in media production in Dublin. Her perspective on social media has changed a lot since her first child was born. Back then, she felt comfortable posting pictures of her baby son online.
“When Instagram started, everyone was throwing everything up. You’d post everything. The same with Facebook. Everyone wanted you to tag them in everything. There was an influx of people posting their kids on blogs and YouTube videos; it was quite normalised.”
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In recent years, she has begun to pull back and post less. “I’m more aware now my kids are getting older,” she says. “If someone decides they don’t like you at school and they look up your parents, they could find something they can use to make fun of you. There is a digital footprint. Anything can be found. You’ve given it to the internet and you can’t take it away again.”
Carton, who is 36, is learning to take her cues from her son’s generation. “The boys don’t seem to post the way we did when we were younger. They’re not posting photographs, they’re not sharing a lot about themselves. I don’t feel right sharing information if he doesn’t want to share it himself.”
These days she rarely uploads a family snap. “My Facebook is closed off, that’s just friends and family. Generally it would be the odd post on Instagram,” she says. “Maybe a family photo or a collage if it’s one of their birthdays. It’s very sporadic that I would post.”
‘People will think something is wrong with your baby if you don’t share photos online’
Marie* works in aircraft leasing and lives in Dublin 8. From the US originally, she came to Dublin to get her master’s degree in finance and never left. In her 30s, she has a four-month-old baby. She first joined social media platforms aged 14, but she’s not currently using any, and does not share pictures of her baby online or allow her family members to do so.
The decision disappointed her mother back home. “There are people her age who are very addicted to social media. She’s not like that, but she does enjoy sharing family updates. When I told my mom we wouldn’t be sharing pictures online, she told me, ‘People will think something is wrong with your baby if you don’t share photos online’. I eventually agreed that she could make a post on social media that acknowledges that she has a grandson. I said she could share his first name, not his middle name. She couldn’t say his birth date and she couldn’t include a picture.”
Marie is happy with her commitment to post zero. “I volunteer with teenagers in a youth organisation in the Liberties and Grok is a huge topic of conversation, especially in the context of it being used for nefarious purposes, like creating sexual images. I don’t know what will be happening by the time my son is a teenager, but I’m hoping it’ll be less of a wild west.”
In the meantime, she has sought out other ways to keep her family and close friends in the loop. “Social media plays a part in keeping families updated,” she says. “There are apps like Tinybeans private album or FamilyAlbum photo sharing which are designed for parents who still want to share pictures and updates with trusted people, but don’t want to put their child’s information on social media.”
‘I am getting a bit more wary’
Hayley Phillips is becoming more cautious about sharing pictures of her two children, aged eight and four, online. For now she continues to share on her social media accounts, but has strict privacy settings. She keeps an eye on who views her Instagram stories. “The most I’d have would be 60 people,” she says. She shares “achievements, great days out”.
“As the years have gone by, I have pulled back a little bit because I am getting a bit more wary,” she says. She’s conscious of AI, and her own inability to tell sometimes what’s real and what’s not. She shares milestones, “but if it’s outside the school or they’re wearing their football gear I always put a heart or emoji over the crest”. She sees the sharing of photos in this cautious way as being the modern digital equivalent of old-fashioned print photos of occasions in her children’s lives. “I wouldn’t be putting up anything inappropriate. They’re not sitting in a bath.” Her partner doesn’t like her sharing photos of the children, she admits. She saw a post on social media from a parent saying they’d no longer allow their child to have their photo taken at school as the photographer has copies of the photo. “It gets you thinking,” she says.
‘AI is scary. We don’t know enough about it and it’s moving so fast’
Louise Ross is the mother of a five-year-old and seven-year-old and works in an administrative role in Dublin. She believes this generation of parents will live to regret posting pictures of children online. “I don’t think we should be sharing anything about them,” she says. “I’d be sad for kids if they look back when they’re adults at things their parents posted. Mostly embarrassing things that maybe a parent thought was sweet or funny at the time, but on reflection you wouldn’t want out there: you’d be scarlet. AI is scary. We don’t know enough about it and it’s moving so fast. I really hope social media will be banned for kids until they’re 16. We just need it to be the rules: that’s it.”
[ ‘The power is with us’: Smartphone-free parenting movement takes off in IrelandOpens in new window ]
Ross got in touch with Simon Harris’s office after the Data Protection Commission began releasing its Pause before you Post adverts advising parents to think before posting photos of children online. “[The ads] were very powerful and they were hitting home with the mothers in my 500-strong WhatsApp group.” She wishes the Tánaiste would pay attention to them. “I pick up my phone and it’s Simon Harris with his kid. I’m like, ‘What is going on?’ Lead by example, mate: what are you doing? And I like Simon Harris.”
‘We’ve opted out, so my child is being excluded’
Sharon Jackson works as a researcher in the areas of global development, HIV and climate change. She is the mother of one child, a five-year-old, who recently started in junior infants at school in Dublin. Jackson, who is 48, does not use social media and does not want images of her child online.
At enrolment, Jackson and her partner were asked if they would give permission for their child to be photographed for the school website. “We opted out,” Jackson says. “But what I find strange is that the school publishes an enormous number of pictures of the kids in the school and the classrooms [in a weekly newsletter] and they publish it online. It’s available to everyone. And it appears to be very common across a lot of schools. There is no need to have that information publicly available. The majority of that information should be kept private to the school community.”
This is particularly the case, Jackson says, because the children are in a recognisable setting, at defined times of day, potentially making them vulnerable to those with malevolent intent. “It’s a very live conversation in the school right now because of what’s happening with Grok and the focus on the misuse of images. And the [Data Protection Commission] advert with the girl in the shopping centre had a big impact among parents. Consent is really important as well. Very young children can’t give consent, and even with older children, a child can’t really consent because they can’t really understand it.”
Jackson’s partner works in the tech industry and with AI, and he shares her views about social media privacy. “I’ve found that the more people work in that world, the more absolute they are about the privacy of their children,” she says, a situation she finds telling.
‘I played a little part in ‘momfluencer’ culture’
Teresa Lenane is a marketing consultant based in Ardmore in Co Waterford. She used to recommend that brands hire “momfluencers” – women who posted pictures of their children online – because they offered relatable content. “They were maybe at home with the kids, cooking the dinner, collecting them from training, they were seen as real,” she says. “Around 2018, they were really trusted. That was the peak.”
That was before the development of large language (AI) models like Grok, and before Covid. “During Covid, there were so many copycats, especially when people were stuck at home,” Lenane says. “For every successful influencer, someone who could make a full-time salary or get a mortgage, there might be 2,000 copycats on Instagram in Ireland. All these people had their kids up, showing them at gymnastics, in pyjamas, performing for cameras. I realised it was a beast of a machine and I didn’t want to help fund it any more. It was not right – these kids couldn’t consent to having every aspect of their life shown on screen.”
So Lenane changed tack. “If I was working on a brand, I was saying, ‘You should not be funding it’. And if there was pushback, I would say, ‘Your brand is going to be seen negatively’. In Lenane’s opinion, Instagram viewers are more likely now to disapprove of images of children shared online. She cites the example of Brooklyn Beckham, who has had his images posted online since childhood and is now estranged from his parents. “He might be the first product of a heavily manufactured family brand. We’re seeing a direct result.
“I played a little part in the momfluencer culture and we’re only at the tip of the iceberg. No one knows how this is going to go.”
‘I wouldn’t be forcing them to pose’
Micheál Brennan, known on social media as Donegal Daddy, says he never set out to grow a following. He started sharing family life online to normalise being a stay-at-home dad, and to connect with other people during the pandemic. “I was doing skits and funny bits… we only had the one girl at the time. I didn’t have any followers. It was only a case of passing the day,” he says. People began to message the now father of three, saying they related to his posts. “It just grew from that.”
Brennan has ADHD and shares the reality of being an ADHD parent on his account. The photos are never performative and are just moments of “day-to-day” life. “Am I supposed to stop doing that now because people happen to follow us? Loads of people share their kids way more than I do,” he says. “I don’t post anything that would put them at risk. I wouldn’t put them up even in their vests... If I have a question over ‘should I post this’, that means [I] don’t post it.”
Brennan is not an influencer, he says. His children are just living life, not promoting brands. He gets recognised “sometimes”, “but nobody generally comes up to us”. When they do, it’s often just to say hello to “Donegal Daddy” as opposed to the kids, he says. He doesn’t think he has been recognised outside his home county. He’s never had any negative encounters. He does think about how the girls might feel in the future about their dad sharing pictures of them online. He refers to a recent time where one of his daughters asked him to “take a video Daddy. I want to tell our followers something”.
“It was about the snow being like icing sugar from heaven. I know she’s only six so you can’t even take that as consent… but obviously I wouldn’t be forcing them to say anything, or forcing them to pose.” Recently his children were dressed up before heading out. He wanted to take their photo just for himself and his wife, but one child decided she wanted “no photos”. So he didn’t take one. “You just try to make an educated call on it that... there’s nothing embarrassing there. That they’re not going to come back and go ‘why did you do that to me Daddy?’ Anything embarrassing on our page is generally myself.” Brennan is aware of the dangers of AI. He doesn’t think those who would generate fake images need to take the pictures of children like his, as they can generate their own images, and already have access to images. “I am posting less and less now, the more it goes on. Just as a precaution,” he concedes. “You just hope good wins out.”
*Marie’s name has been changed
