Should We Blame the Instagram Moms?

What to do and say about the moms putting their daughters on social media....

Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

One of the main tenets of all my reporting and storytelling is to avoid placing blame on or judging mothers. Being a mother and a woman in the world is often impossible and we are all on our own journey and just trying to make life work. I truly believe that and for the most part I try to avoid discussions of “right” and “wrong” here.

And yet, the recent story in the New York Times that discusses parents (mostly mothers) posting salacious photos despite knowing that pedophiles are looking at them is intensely concerning. And yes, I think some blame on these mothers is due. Before we dive into that though I want to preface this with the fact that the social media platforms do very little to protect children and to keep predators off of their sites. In fact, this kind of behavior is often rewarded by the algorithm because of increased engagement.

And two, we should place blame and culpability squarely on the sexual predators themselves. It is disgusting that they are allowed to discuss these images in various chat rooms, to trade them and to essentially and hide in plain sight.

Blaming only the mothers is partially blaming victims of a broken system.

But, but, but, but, but…….

When I posted this story many of you messaged me in disgust. How could a mother post images of their child knowing it was likely being viewed by pedophiles and predators?

THIS IS AN ACTUAL QUOTE from one of the predators about how they use social media:

“I’m so glad for these new moms pimping their daughters out,” wrote one of them. “And there’s an infinite supply of it — literally just refresh your Instagram Explore page there’s fresh preteens.”

These kinds of people comment on these young girls accounts on a regular basis, often calling girls as young as five “sexy.” It is very clear what is happening, or it should be, to the adult women running these accounts.

Now let’s look at some of the quotes from the mothers in this piece:

“I think they’re all pedophiles,” she said of the many online followers obsessed with her daughter and other young girls.

Elissa and her daughter inhabit the world of Instagram influencers whose accounts are managed by their parents.

Ultimately, she concluded, the Instagram community is dominated by “disgusting creeps,” but she nonetheless keeps the account up and running. Shutting it down, she said, would be “giving in to bullies.”

**

“I really don’t want my child exploited on the internet,” said Kaelyn, a mother in Melbourne, Australia, who like Elissa and many other parents interviewed by The Times agreed to be identified only by a middle name to protect the privacy of her child.

“But she’s been doing this so long now,” she said. “Her numbers are so big. What do we do? Just stop it and walk away?”

“She’s written herself off and decided that the only way she’s going to have a future is to make a mint on OnlyFans,” she said, referring to a website that allows users to sell adult content to subscribers. “She has way more than that to offer.”

**

“The first thing I do when I wake up and the last thing I do when I go to bed is block accounts,” said Lynn, the mother of a 6-year-old girl in Florida who has about 3,000 followers from the dance world.

Another mother, Gail from Texas, described being desensitized to the men’s messages. “I don’t have as much of an emotional response anymore,” she said. “It’s weird to be so numb to that, but the quantity is just astounding.”

The question I keep being asked is why, why, why? And also, how should we think about all of this as users and consumers of social media. I don’t have expert answers or anything. I’m not an expert. But here are some thoughts:

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