In case you missed it, the “sharenting” trend – i.e. the phenomena whereby parents ‘overshare’ their children’s lives on social media – has been dominating headlines.
In the wake of an opinion piece by Angela Mollard for Rendezview over the weekend, much-loved local celebrities — in particular Zoe Foster Blake and Hamish Blake — have found themselves and their Instagram accounts a national talking point.
Mollard’s piece vocalised fears that images of the couple’s toddler son, Sonny, would be “shared by paedophiles”, adding that the “invasion of [his] privacy” could foster future resentment.
That said, many Australian celebrities post images and videos from their children’s lives, the majority of which are overwhelmingly positive. As explained by Foster Blake herself in Good Weekend: “I spend my life with this child; it would be weirder for me never to post a photo of him. And we are as sure as shit not exploiting him”.
While some have argued Mollard catastrophised an innocent, enjoyable expression of family life, debating the merits and potential downfalls of sharenting is valid. After all, in the writer’s own words, “we don’t know what impact all this ‘sharenting’ is going to have”.
