It is the parent’s responsibility to shield their children from the cruelty of the world. It's unfortunate that some see their children as a getaway ticket to a better life they can’t provide for themselves.
We live in a world where anything can become content, but where does one draw the line?
Teen Vogue published an article about a teenage girl Claire (not her real name), who is increasingly resentful of her parents because they have turned her childhood into social media content.
Unlike us, the 90s babies, the GenZ hardly experienced what it’s like playing inqgathu (skipping rope), izingedo (magave), umgusha (pole vault). The games they know better are the ones on their cellphones.
And while many of them are exposed to social media from a young age, for most being on social media themselves wasn’t by choice. It was because their parents always had a camera on their faces, just like Claire, whose whole childhood life was YouTube content.
She started going viral when she was only a toddler, and when her parents noticed how her YouTube channel was stacking up numbers, they quit their jobs and decided filming their child for the whole world would feed them.
They made so much money from it that they bought a nice house and a car. As the years went by, and Claire grew, she realised that she hated what they were doing and asked her dad if they could stop. Instead of listening to his daughter’s plea, the father reminded her that although he was her father, he was also her boss.
Claire told Teen Vogue that it was unfair to be exploited by her parents, who wanted a soft life at her expense. As long as they could shove a camera to her face and afford all the nice things, then all was well with them.
She told the publication that once she turned 18, she wanted to move out and cut off ties with her parents. She said once she was out of their lives, she’d be able to go public with her story and shame her parents for publicising her childhood, even though she had not wanted that. The teenager said she wanted her parents to know that “nothing they do now is going to take back the years of work I had to put in.”
And as a person who does mommy content on TikTok, I understand Claire’s frustration. Most parents need to know that they can always put the content out there without using their children, it’s possible. Everyone knows I have a child, but no one on social media has seen my child. I post weekly content about what I do for her, like preparing her meals, doing her monthly shopping, and taking her for her immunisations, but I have never exposed her.