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Another video of a child baking with her mother popped up on my TikTok “For You” page last week. The five-year-old girl was pouring a cup of sugar into a bowl of chocolate cake batter, clearly laughing and having the time of her life. Still, I couldn’t help but ask myself the inevitable question: does this child understand just how much of her life is on social media?
Family influencers whose content features their offspring face unavoidable concerns about their children’s safety with every video they post – with public scrutiny getting ever more intense after several high-profile episodes.
For example, last month, a police investigation was launched into Hannah Hiatt, a mother and influencer known as “Nurse Hannah” on TikTok. The investigation came after a video of a light-hearted family grocery run seemingly showed Hiatt’s two-year-old son shield his face from his father, who was moving a cereal box past him.
The toddler’s apparent flinch resulted in swift backlash, with commenters declaring the boy’s behavior was indicative of abuse; Hiatt quickly deleted the video in response. But the damage had been done — the Ogden, Utah, Police Department later confirmed “there is an open, active investigation” into Hiatt due to “numerous reports through Child Protective Service and police.”
It’s the latest in a string of incidents that have plagued the murky world of “momfluencers” — mothers who’ve built a successful social media presence by filming their children.
One of the biggest mom influencers, YouTuber Ruby Franke – who ran her family’s “8 Passengers” channel — was sentenced to 30 years in prison in February 2024 for abusing her 12-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter. The high-profile case raised questions about consent in the family influencer sphere and how to protect children in those spaces.
When it comes to money, there has at least been some progress in ensuring fairness, with legislation passed in California in September requiring parents to set aside earnings for child social media influencers. But whether or not they’re being financially compensated, children under the age of consent, who spend years being monetized by their parents, may well be less enthused when they hit their teenage years.
Franke’s daughter Shari — the eldest of six — does not look back on her stardom fondly. While speaking to the Business and Labor Interim Committee in Utah in October, the 21-year-old declared that, while she got paid for documenting her embarrassing moments as a child, that doesn’t mean anything to her now.
“If I could go back and do it all again, I’d rather have an empty bank account now and not have my childhood plastered all over the internet. No amount of money I received has made what I’ve experienced worth it,” she said.
It’s an issue that momfluencer Brittini Wester, a mother of three with more than 225,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok, has become increasingly conscious of. But Wester is convinced that those sentiments won’t come up for her children, currently aged one, three, and five.
“ I started seeing some of that on social media with other influencers, where people would say, ‘You’re using your kids for videos.’ So I did scale back the amount of screen time that my kids have in my videos, and my content isn’t necessarily about them and their lives,” she says. “But I’m still paying my children for the videos they’re in. They don’t know that now, but at some point they’ll realize that they have a bank account set aside.”
Wester’s following has grown to such an extent that she was recently able to quit her 9-5 job, all thanks to “momfluencing.” Her strong online presence led her to be selected for Amazon’s Influencer Program, tasked with filming her kids playing with their toys and including links to these products on Amazon. Her annual salary has never been higher.
“Since I’ve left my other job, my children see that as: ‘Daddy’s job is a software developer, and mommy’s job is to make videos.’ The earning potential and support with Amazon’s program are really nice. This is my first year and first time ever making six figures,” she says.
Wester is committed to sharing the wealth; every time she earns a commission when someone buys a product through her links, half of it goes straight into her children’s savings account. The other half is spent on necessities for her momfluencer business.
Influencer Ann Le Do — the mother of three children aged two, seven, and nine — found purpose amid the pandemic by making videos about the chaos of motherhood. It’s now been four years since she became a “momfluencer,” and she’s amassed 419,000 followers on Instagram and 305,000 followers on TikTok in that time.
Major brands like Verizon, Gymboree, Wawa, Target, and M&Ms have trusted her to boost sales through video content featuring her and her children using their products. According to De Lo, her children jump at the opportunity to be in the clips, centered on their favorite at-home family activities, because they know it’s for her job.
Comedy is key in her other videos on married life, which include sexual innuendos about maintaining intimacy with her husband as busy parents. She’s clear that this content is for a strictly adult audience, with one clip showing the couple dancing and hugging, leading up to an intimate moment — which inevitably gets curtailed when their kids run into the bedroom. Still, Le Do’s children have not seen those clips, despite starring in them.
“In the future, when they are exposed to it, I think that they will understand that it was all for humor for adults,” she says, “and that we could just laugh about it.”
You will never see Le Do mention her children’s personal lives. “I often poke fun at myself and the realities of family life, but always in a lighthearted, loving way. My kids sometimes make small appearances, but I’m careful not to include anything that could embarrass them,” she explains. “If they’re not in the mood or don’t want to be part of something, I never push it.”
Just like Wester, Le Do shares her considerable momfluencer earnings with her family. A portion of her money goes directly into an account for the children, used for whatever dream career they eventually want to pursue. She also spends some of the funds on family fun and resources for her social media career.
“Since we’re a dual-income family, my earnings contribute to creating experiences for us, like trips, activities, or even just little moments that bring us closer together,” she says. “I also reinvest in my work by upgrading equipment or taking on opportunities that will help me grow in the long run.”
Online mom-shaming is unavoidable in a digital world where everybody has an opinion on everything, as Wester and Le Do know all too well. Still, they refuse to feel ashamed for posting what they want.
“At the end of the day, I share my family because it’s meaningful to me, whether I’m an influencer or just a mom who’s capturing and celebrating their little moments. If I get negative feedback, I try not to let the negativity get to me,” Le Do says.
Wester claims she’s received nothing but love from people online, other than the time a critic called out one second of a video in which her child was watching something on a tablet.
For now, she’s ignoring any hate about how she makes her money. “I don’t feel guilty about that. I’m posting a bunch of links, of course, I’m making money off it,” she says. “But I’m still putting in 30 to 40 hours a week of product research, filming, and editing. Being a mom influencer isn’t getting in the way of my ‘normal’ life. This is a regular job.”
