{"id":7940,"date":"2018-03-12T10:48:45","date_gmt":"2018-03-12T10:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=7940"},"modified":"2018-03-12T10:48:45","modified_gmt":"2018-03-12T10:48:45","slug":"sharenting-mothers-post-children-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/arts-social-sciences\/society-politics\/sharenting-mothers-post-children-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharenting: why mothers post about their children on social media"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On Mother\u2019s Day, social media feeds are often full of celebration. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adweek.com\/digital\/facebook-mothers-day-2017-features\/\">Facebook reported<\/a> that in 2017, Mother\u2019s Day \u201cdrove more posts in a single day than any other topic on Facebook in the last year\u201d. For some countries, Facebook even created a temporary emoji \u2013 the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.examiner.co.uk\/news\/whats-purple-flower-emoji-facebook-13036947\">purple flower<\/a> \u2013 so people could fully express their gratitude for their mothers online.<\/p>\n<p>Every other day, alongside pictures of cats and food, many mothers take to social media with photos and status updates celebrating the lives of their children. The term \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.collinsdictionary.com\/dictionary\/english\/sharenting\">sharenting<\/a>\u201d neatly captures this activity. These posts can be seen as moments of pride, but there has been criticism of the frequency of these parental status updates.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"What is sharenting?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VgqsyFzUlIc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>While parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles share images online, <a href=\"https:\/\/yardi.people.si.umich.edu\/pubs\/Schoenebeck_ManagingChildrensIdentities15.pdf\">research <\/a> shows it is mothers who post more information about their children on social media \u2013 particularly when it comes to family photos. It\u2019s also mothers who are largely the focus of disapproval and judgement for their sharenting.<\/p>\n<p>Those irritated by sharenting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stfuparentsblog.com\/\">describe posts<\/a> as \u201cdull\u201d, \u201crepetitive\u201d and \u201cjust plain annoying\u201d. Some find it irritating enough to set up social media groups such as <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/STFUParents?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor\">STFU Parents<\/a>, formed around the idea that they are being \u201cdriven crazy\u201d by baby and child updates in their social networks.<\/p>\n<p>Sharenting has also been heavily criticised as a form of <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/obsessive-sharenting-could-be-more-than-digital-narcissism-30331\">digital narcissism<\/a>. But more than this, it is also seen as one long parental \u201chumblebrag\u201d, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.oxforddictionaries.com\/definition\/humblebrag\">defined<\/a> as: \u201cAn ostensibly modest or self-deprecating statement whose actual purpose is to draw attention to something of which one is proud.\u201d Here\u2019s an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.co.uk\/2013\/10\/28\/are-you-a-humble-brag-parent_n_7378498.html\">example<\/a> from an article in the Huffington Post:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Tripped over on my way home from collecting Jemima from her GRADE SEVEN cello exam. What an idiot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figure class=\"align-center \"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/208711\/original\/file-20180302-171274-153fnsi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Made for social media.<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"attribution\"><a class=\"source\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/home\">via shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The link between humblebragging and pride suggests that parents \u2013 and mothers in particular \u2013 face a real ethical struggle when posting about their children and families online. While pride can take on both <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/is-pride-a-vice-or-a-virtue-a-psychologist-explains-79225\">positive and negative connotations<\/a>, it\u2019s also an emotion associated with \u201cgood\u201d parenting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/09540250903011350\">Research<\/a> shows that expressions of parental pride are associated with the moral development of children, and on good-quality child raising \u2013 upon which childhood outcomes depend.<\/p>\n<h2>A matter of pride<\/h2>\n<p>In our <a href=\"https:\/\/oupsychology.wordpress.com\/2018\/02\/15\/digital-mothering\/\">own research<\/a> we asked 15 mothers to show us some of their posts about their children and family and tell us about their experiences.<\/p>\n<p>We found that mothers were most likely to use the word \u201cproud\u201d when posting about their children in relation to specific achievements such as competitions or passing exams. Given that pride is a social expectation of good parenting, it\u2019s not surprising that mothers didn\u2019t see their own expressions of pride on social media as a problem. Instead, our participants used it as a key justification for posting child-related content.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"align-center \"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/208714\/original\/file-20180302-65516-v7k847.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip\" alt=\"\" \/><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Of course, my son won.<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"attribution\"><a class=\"source\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shutterstock.com\/home\">via shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Our research also suggests that expressions of parental pride online are linked to increased social demands placed on parents. Parents, and particularly mothers, <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.co.uk\/books?hl=en&amp;lr=&amp;id=5r5obtRneqoC&amp;oi=fnd&amp;pg=PR9&amp;dq=hays++intensive+mothering&amp;ots=GUCTSDWaUD&amp;sig=We3AMwdu_JiiMRwC7Yshlg5NIf0#v=onepage&amp;q=hays%20%20intensive%20mothering&amp;f=false\">are socially expected<\/a> to invest heavily in terms of time, care and labour. They\u2019re expected to ensure that not only do their children thrive, but that they excel in relation to their peers. Social media becomes one way parents can visually demonstrate how they are meeting these parenting demands.<\/p>\n<h2>A cause of conflict<\/h2>\n<p>Digital demonstrations of good parenting become increasingly complicated as children grow older. One example of this from our research focused on a family argument around a young girl\u2019s rights over an unflattering school photo posted by her \u201cproud\u201d dad on Facebook. The daughter disliked the photo enough to report her father to Facebook\u2019s administrator when he refused to take his post down.<\/p>\n<p>She was worried that it would be seen by her friends and classmates and that she would receive negative comments at school. However, her mother told us that Facebook supported the father\u2019s right to keep the post in circulation in this case. What is a source of pride to parents can nevertheless be a source of disruption to the child\u2019s life \u2013 both on and offline.<\/p>\n<p>Our research also suggests some mothers believe that by posting updates about their children online, they can try to avoid digital conflict by keeping everyone involved. Mothers often treat their online sharing as a means of maintaining close connections and relationships with others in their social network. This parallels <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/15350770.2010.520616\">findings on family relationship maintenance<\/a> offline, which suggest that women engage more frequently than men in communicating updates to other family members through letters and phone calls.<\/p>\n<p>For the mothers who took part in our study, it was important that the photos and updates they chose to share expressed something about the closeness of their family \u2013 and something genuinely nice about their children. Rather than seeing mothers\u2019 updates simply as \u201csharenting\u201d, our research indicates that these are online expressions of mothers\u2019 love and care in the digital age.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/lisa-lazard-222761\">Lisa Lazard<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/the-open-university-748\">The Open University<\/a><\/em>; <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/abigail-locke-95571\">Abigail Locke<\/a>, Professor in Psychology, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-bradford-911\">University of Bradford<\/a><\/em>; <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/charlotte-dann-449217\">Charlotte Dann<\/a>, Lecturer in Psychology, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-northampton-1194\">University of Northampton<\/a><\/em>; <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/rose-capdevila-340404\">Rose Capdevila<\/a>, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/the-open-university-748\">The Open University<\/a><\/em>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/profiles\/sandra-roper-449219\">Sandra Roper<\/a>, Lecturer in Applied Social Studies, <em><a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\/institutions\/university-of-bedfordshire-1279\">University of Bedfordshire<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on <a href=\"http:\/\/theconversation.com\">The Conversation<\/a>. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/sharenting-why-mothers-post-about-their-children-on-social-media-91954\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Mother\u2019s Day, social media feeds are often full of celebration. Facebook reported that in 2017, Mother\u2019s Day \u201cdrove more posts in a single day than any other topic on Facebook in the last year\u201d. For some countries, Facebook even created a temporary emoji \u2013 the purple flower \u2013 so people could fully express their [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":7941,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[620,1472,1849,1988,2055],"class_list":["post-7940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-politics","tag-digital","tag-motherhood","tag-psychology","tag-selfie","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}