The First Social Media Babies Are Growing Up–And They’re Horrified

How would you feel if millions of people watched your childhood tantrums?

By Kate Lindsay

This article was featured in One Story to Read Today, a newsletter in which our editors
recommend a single must-read from The Atlantic, Monday through Friday.

My baby pictures and videos are the standard compendium of embarrassment. I was
photographed waddling in nothing but diaper, filmed smearing food all over my face instead of
eating it. But I’m old enough that the kompromat is safe in the confines of physical photo albums
and VHS tapes in my parents’ attic. Even my earliest digital activity—posting emotional MySpace
photo captions and homemade music videos—took place in the new and unsophisticated internet
of the early 2000s, and has, blissfully, been lost to time. I feel relief whenever I’m reminded of
those vanished artifacts, and even more so when I see pictures and videos of children on the
internet today, who won’t be so lucky.

In December, I watched a TikTok of two young sisters named Olivia and Millie opening Christmas
presents. When the large boxes in front of them turned out to contain two suitcases, Millie, who
appeared to be about 4 years old, burst into tears. (Luggage, unsurprisingly, was not what she
wanted from Santa.) Her parents scrambled to explain that the real presents—tickets to a four-
day Disney cruise—were actually inside the suitcases, but Millie was too far gone. She couldn’t
stop screaming and crying. Nine million strangers watched her breakdown, and thousands of
them commented on it. “This is a great ad for birth control,” one wrote. (The TikTok has since
been deleted.)

Two decades ago, this tantrum would have been just another bit of family lore, or at worst, a home
video trotted out for relatives every Christmas Eve. But no, thoughtless choices made years ago—
a keg stand photographed, a grocery-store argument taped—can define our digital footprints, and
a generation of parents like Millie’s are knowingly burdening their children with an even bigger
online dossier.

The children of the Facebook era—which truly began in 2006, when the platform opened to
everyone—are growing up, preparing to enter the workforce, and facing the consequences of
their parents’ social-media use. Many are filling the shoes of a digital persona that’s already been
created, and that they have no power to erase.

Caymi Barter, now 24, grew up with a mom who posted Barett’s personal moments—bath photos,
her MRSA diagnosis, the fact that she was adopted, the time a drink driver hit the car she was
riding in—publicly on Facebook. (Barrett’s mother did not respond to requests for comment.) The
distress this caused eventually motivated Barrett to become a vocal advocate for children’s
internet privacy, including testifying in front of the Washington State House earlier this year. But
before that, when Barrett was a teen and had just signed up for her first Twitter account, she
followed her mom’s example, complaining about her siblings and talking candidly about her
medical issues.

Barrett’s audience of younger users are the ones who pointed out the problem, she told me. Her
internet friends started “reaching out to me, being like, ‘Hey maybe you should take this down,’”
she said. Today’s teen are similarly wary of oversharing. They joke on TikTok about the terror of
their peers finding their parents’ Facebooks. Stephen Balkam, the CEO of the nonprofit Family
Online Safety Institute, says that even younger children migh experience a “digital coming-of-age”
and the discomfort that comes with it. “What we’ve seen is very mature 10-, 11-, 12-years-olds
sitting down with their parents, going, ‘Mom, what were you thinking?’” he told me.

In the United States, parental authority supersedes a child’s right to privacy, and socially, we’ve
normalized sharing information about and images of children that we’ve never would of adults.
Parents regularly divulge diaper diaper-changing mishaps, potty-training successes, and details
about a child’s first menstrual period to an audience of hundreds or thousands of people. There
are no real rules against it. Social-media platforms have guidelines for combating truly
inappropriate content—physical abuse of minors, child nudity, neglect, endangerment, and the
like. But uploading non-abusive content can be damaging too, according to kids whose live have
been painstakingly documented online.

For parents, posting can be hard to quit. Views, likes, and comments offer a form of positive
reinforcement to parents, whose work is largely invisible and often thankless. “The most tangible
proof of our work is children themselves,” Sare Petersen, the author of the book Momfluenced:
Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture, told me. “And
sometimes it’s really just nice to post a cute photo and have 10 or 12 people say, ‘So cute.’”

The likes and comments are one thing. Money is another. Families who document their lives
intimately on YouTube or TikTok can amass large audiences, sponsorships, and ad revenue.
Currently, no state or federal laws entitle the children of these family vloggers to any of the money
earned, although, as The Washington Post recently reported, such legislation has been
introduced in states including Washington and Illinois.

Some new parents feel there’s no excuse for subjecting children to invasive public scrutiny.
Kristina, a 34-year-old mother from Los Angeles who asked to be identified by only her first name
for privacy reasons, has posted just a handful of photos of her daughter, and covers her face in
all of them. “We didn’t really want to share her image publicly, because she can’t consent to that.”
she told me. Many other adults don’t respect Kristina’s decision. “I had someone basically
insinuate, was there something wrong with my daughter? Because I wasn’t sharing her,” she said.

Even if parents have decided to keep their children off social media, they’re not the only ones with
phones. Kristina say she’s had to ask friends and family to take down photos they’ve posted of
her daughter online. Every person on the street, every parent at a birthday party, has their own
camera in their pocket, and the potential to knowingly or unknowingly violate her family’s
boundary.
Barrett says she’s still feeling the effects of her mother’s decade of oversharing. When Barrett
was 12, she says she was once followed home by a man who she believes recognized her from
the internet. She was later bullied by classmates who latched on to all the intimate details of her
life that her mother had posted online, and she ultimately dropped out of high school.

She and her mom have no relationship now, in large part because of the wedge her mother’s
social-media habits put between them. Even with other people, Barrett says, she’s extremely
private and can be paranoid about interacting. “I get afraid to even tell my friends or my fiancé
something, because in the back of my mind I’m constantly like, Is this gonna be weaponized
against me on the internet?”