There's a seven year old girl somewhere on the internet right now, unboxing toys for millions of people. She is smiling, she 7s energetic, she is
on and somewhere behind the camera, a parent is directing the whole thing , maybe editing it too, maybe counting the brand deals after, the question is — is that okay?
Because this is the reality we're living in, Kids are influencers now, full blown content creators with fanbases larger than most adults will ever have, and the internet has a lot of feelings about it, some people think it's exploitation dressed up in cute thumbnails, others think it is just modern parenting, a new way to involve your kids in your hustle, Me? I think it depends, and I think we need to stop acting like the answer is simple.
Here is what I know, not every parent doing this is a bad parent, some of these families started by just sharing their lives online, and the kids were naturally part of that, the child was bubbly, people loved them, and suddenly there's an audience, that's not a calculated evil plan, that's just... life moving fast, and some of those kids are genuinely having fun, you can tell the difference between a child who enjoys performing and a child who is being pushed in front of a camera like a prop.
But here is where it gets complicated, Even if the child is having fun NOW, what about later? What about when they are fifteen and there are thousands of videos of them on the internet from when they were five? What about when they are adults who never got to decide whether they wanted a public life or not? That consent issue is real and it's not something a seven year old can navigate, a kid can't fully understand what it means to have millions of strangers watching them grow up, that is a weight no child should carry without even knowing they are carrying it.
And then there is the safety angle, the internet is not a safe place, it is really not, the comments, the DMs, the people who follow these child accounts for reasons that have nothing to do with cute content , it is terrifying, parents who are serious about this should be terrifyingly strict about what gets posted, no location hints, no school uniforms, no content that could be misused, and even then, you can't control everything, that's the reality.
The money conversation also needs to happen, because a lot of these kids are generating real income and seeing none of it, legally, in many places, there's nothing stopping a parent from spending every kobo of what their child earns, that's not parenting, that's using a child as a business asset. If your kid is working ,and content creation IS work they should have something secured for when they're old enough to access it.
So where do I land? I think children being influencers isn't automatically wrong, but it requires a level of intentionality that a lot of parents honestly aren't bringing to it, Is the child happy and genuinely willing? Are you protecting their privacy and safety obsessively? Are you setting aside their earnings for THEM? Are you prepared to stop the moment they say they don't want to do it anymore?
If you can answer yes to all of that, maybe you're doing it right, but if you are pushing content schedules on a nine year old, spending the brand deal money on yourself, and calling it family content let's be honest about what that actually is.
The camera doesn't make it okay, And they love it is not always the truth, sometimes it is just what you tell yourself.
