The issue of “sharenting” has received a great deal of attention in recent days.
On Sunday, journalist Angela Mollard penned a column for Rendezview arguing that the decision of parents to share photos of their children online could be a dangerous one.
“What if ‘sharenting’ seemed like a lovely, fun thing to do but once you pulled the hood off, like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood, you saw it was ugly and scary and damaging?” she wrote.
While many women have spoken out on either side of the debate, on Tuesday night’s episode of The Project, mum-of-two Carrie Bickmore offered an as-yet unacknowledged reason why celebrity mums might be “sharenting.”
After a segment which asked several mums and dads for their opinion when it comes to sharing photos of their kids online, The Project co-host Hamish Macdonald commented, “It’s such an individual thing though, isn’t it?”
“It’s so hard to know,” responded Carrie.
“Like, I used to be so private with Ollie, never put any photos of Ollie out there, because all I want is for him to have the most normal upbringing. To go to school and not have photos of him everywhere.
“But then, when photos of him and Evie started appearing in magazines taken by other photographers on the street and stuff, it was almost like I wanted a bit of ownership back. So I started posting my own pics so I could control what pics of my children were being put out there.
“But on any given day… so one day I might want to post every hour… because you love your kids, and you’re so proud. But then on the other days I’m like, ‘Nup, I’ve just go to stop.'”
Like almost every parent entering into this conversation, her ultimate response was, “I don’t know.”
It’s a clever point – that celebrity parents might be sharing photos of their children to take back some control from increasingly invasive photographers. And why shouldn’t they? If images of Bickmore’s young kids are going to be splashed all over the web and magazines without her consent, it’s fair that she should be able to show them in the light she wants to.
Waleed then asked, “Isn’t there a consent issue? Isn’t that what it boils down to?”
As much as Peter Helliar and the other co-hosts tried to come to some sort of conclusion, they simply couldn’t. Because it really is an issue for every parent to consider on their own terms.
Top Comments
But she DOESN'T control what pictures are 'out there', just a few of them so it's a rubbish reason,
I would think that celebrities need to be even more protective of their children than us regular folk. They ARE in the public eye and and therefore pictures circulate much further afield when it comes to celebrities. Many more thousands of weirdos looking at your children ...
Yes, there are some wierdos out there and if people really knew the reality of this , the last thing they would do is draw attention to their children. If you do some googling it is easy to read about celebs/ actors, who have been killed.attacked by stalkers who they had never had anything to do with.