"Pink just learned the hard way not to share naked photos of your kids."

I love Pink. I love her music, I love her strength, and that speech she made about her daughter at the VMAs still brings a tear to my eye.

But on Monday, Pink learned the hard way that not everyone is going to love everything she does. When it comes to sharing photos of kids, what’s cute to a besotted mum might not be cute to all five million of her followers. Posting a picture of your young children near-naked on Instagram is going to get you in trouble these days. It just is.

The photo that got Pink in trouble is gorgeous. Her kids, Willow and Jameson, are entranced by a pelican. There’s this wonderful naturalness to it. Nothing styled. But Jameson is only wearing a t-shirt and Willow isn’t wearing much either.

I know Pink said she didn’t notice her son’s genitals were showing, but other people did. Of course they did. Yes, it’s a bit creepy that people would be looking closely enough to make judgments on whether or not he was circumcised and then share their opinions. But that’s going to happen. You post a photo on Instagram, you are inviting people to react. You can’t control what they say, or how nasty they get.

When you show your kids near-naked, you will get reactions, and a lot of them won’t be good, and they will hurt, because it’s people saying things about your kids. But you can’t be surprised.

You can delete the comments, but the memory of them lingers.

“There’s something seriously wrong with a lot of you out there,” Pink wrote on Instagram yesterday, after seeing what people were saying. “Going off about my baby’s penis? About circumcision??? Are you for real? As any normal mother at the beach, I didn’t even notice he took off his swim diaper.

“I deleted it because you’re all f**king disgusting. And now I’m turning off my comments and shaking my head at the state of social media and keyboard warriors, and the negativity that you bring to other people’s lives.”

I love seeing photos of celebrities’ kids on Instagram, especially when the photos look as natural as Pink’s. I really like getting these glimpses into the lives of people I admire. But I’m starting to feel a little bit guilty about looking.

Celebrities’ kids are kids too. They may, like Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter Apple, reach an age where they don’t want photos of themselves out there – even if that photo barely shows their face. A 14-year-old boy may not appreciate finding a story online about that time his mum accidentally posted a photo of his genitals and people discussed whether or not he was circumcised. (Or, alternatively, he may find it absolutely hilarious. Who knows?)

Every time any of us posts a photo of our child, we have to think about whether our child will appreciate that photo being out there. In the case of celebrities, they also have to think about what their millions of followers might say about that photo. Because if there’s something rude or nasty to say, people will say it. That is the state of social media. What’s surprising is that Pink sounded surprised.

When you have almost six million followers, you just can’t be.

Because you’ll inevitably be facing some very difficult conversations down the track.

Read more on this topic:

‘There’s something seriously wrong with you.’ Pink responds to fans who criticised her choice to circumcise her son.

Pink’s blistering response to a fan who claimed her husband lacks parenting skills.