Episode 9
Why I'm not putting my kid on social media
Today, I'm answering a question from Anthea:"I notice you don't really put your daughter on social media and I was interested in the thinking behind that and what you feel about other parents who do it?"
Brave is the person who genuinely admits what they think of other parents 😂
But in this instance, even though I can't get myself comfy with posting my kid on social media, I'd happily watch videos of your kids all day!
Tiny humans are excellent content so I understand why people post about them but my lack of social media content is really just my way of ensuring I'll have a legitimate rebuttal for when my daughter eventually asks me for Instagram (or whatever platform is around when she's older).
That's right.
My approach to putting my kid social media is about planning for a conversation that's potentially ten years away.
Nothing weird about that, right?
This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Wangal people, of the Eora Nation.
I pay my respects to Elders past and present.
EPISODE CREDITS:
Host: Rachel Corbett
Editing Assistance: Lize Ratliff
LINKS & OTHER IMPORTANT STUFF:
Click here to submit a question to the show
Want to create a podcast of your own? Check out my podcasting course, PodSchool
Email me: rachel@meandmytinyhuman.com
Follow me: Instagram, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, YouTube, TikTok or check out the website.
Transcript
Welcome to Me And My Tiny Human. I'm going to answer a question today. And you are welcome to submit a question, any question you like about my weird choice of a life.
I have a link in the description of the episode where you can submit something.
Anthea sent me a question that says, "I noticed you don't put much of your daughter on social media and I was wondering about your thinking behind that and what you feel about other parents who do it." I mean, brave is the person who genuinely admits what they think of other parents.
But I, in this case, if you are a parent who puts their child on social media, I'm here for it. I'll watch those goddamn videos all day long. You put it up there, I'll consume it. I get it.
They're great content, they're funny, they do stupid stuff all the time. There's a million moments in your day where you're like, this is not normal. And that is what the algorithm loves.
So I kind of wish I was a bit more comfortable with it because she's doing great gear here. Here at home, she's really nailing the performance every single day.
And there's a lot of great stuff I could be shipping out to the masses, but I just can't get my comfortability rating to be anything close to wanting to put her on social media. So when I think about why I have come to this conclusion, I really think one of the things I am really, really good at is preventing future crisis.
Delayed gratification is my thing. I nail it. I love it.
I am very, very good at thinking about what could happen in 10 years time and understanding how what I'm doing right now could impact that and changing my behavior because of that. That might sound like I'm the most boring person in the world, but it's not as boring as it sounds. But it does actually work very well.
For this kind of decision is really all about trying to be best prepared for the inevitable conversation with her about social media that I am going to need to have in 10 or so years if this thing still exists. And just wanting to make sure that when she asks me for social media, I can actually tell her it's not important.
And for her to actually believe that of me because I haven't spent our entire lives putting her on social media.
So I have this really bizarre relationship with social media, mostly because it's entirely categorized by indifference and that is not an emotion or a feeling that I hear a lot of people talk about when they're talking about social media. They either are really invested in it or they really can't stand it.
I could probably be erring more on the can't stand it, but I enjoy watching people's videos. I can understand what some of the benefits are.
I think as a whole, it's completely destroyed our society because everybody is just feeling worse because of it. But I can understand the benefits of it. I just don't personally care about it in terms of my life.
I didn't grow up with it and thank God I did not grow up with it because truly I do not understand how anybody gets through high school when they have to deal with this. I don't get it when there are phones in the classroom and sexting is a thing and all that stuff.
I just do not understand how you manage high school when this is a part of your life. The thing about the way I look at things is if something doesn't make sense to me, it just can't consume me. It just doesn't consume me.
If I can't get my head around the concept, then I just can't obsess about it. And I have never understood social media.
I've never understood this idea of, like, I have to make sure that a whole bunch of people that I don't know know what I'm doing right now. Why, why, why do they have to know that?
And if they don't like it, does it mean that you didn't have a good time even though you did have a good time? And can you actually have a good time when all you're thinking about is, will this look good on social media?
I just really can't have a good time with people if I am thinking about where else I could be and why do you care about these people that don't know you? I just have never understood that. It just doesn't make any sense to me. So because it never made sense to me, I just never really focused on it.
And in many ways that worked to my detriment. I mean, I spent the first 12 years of my career working exclusively in media, in radio and television.
ion actually probably back in:Like, everything was kind of fresh and new and people were doing a lot of stuff on the platforms, and they were getting a lot of followers and a lot of attention, and everybody was like, this is going to your social currency for the rest of your life. Like, there's never going to be a time where this is going to backfire on any of us.
You know, it's just so amazing, and we're all connected, and it's just incredible.
And I'm over here with, like 50 million followers, and everybody knows who I am, and all of my neuroses are now out in the world, and I'm pretending that doesn't matter, but in reality, it's really making it worse.
And so all of this stuff was going on, and I was working in radio at the time, and I remember a job coming up that I was highly qualified for, and I felt like I must be in the mix for this job.
And so I talked to my boss about it, and he said to my face, and honestly, I appreciate the honesty because it really did shift or at least cement the way I felt about this kind of thing. He said to me, "you are the best person for this job, but you will not get this job because you don't have a big enough social media following."
And that was a real light bulb moment for me. I just remember thinking, oh, this industry that I've dedicated a lot of time to, it doesn't really matter if you're any good.
It doesn't matter if you get better at something. And there's no sort of progression because you could be completely booted out because you didn't post about what you had for lunch on Tuesday.
I was like, okay, this is just not for me. And that was kind of a big part of
when I realized not only did I not think social media was for me, but I was kind of like, I'm not 100% sure that the media industry is for me. And then I ended up focusing on other things.
And while I'm partly one foot still in that camp, because I do love the sort of work, I love the work. And I enjoy the process of, like, using my brain and trying to, you know, do that work.
I love it, but I just can't rely on it because I know it's too precarious. And that was kind of the moment for me that I realized hat there was never going to be any rhyme or reason.
It's not like I could put in heaps of hours, and then at the end of those hours, I would be rewarded. It was just not going to work out that way.
And then the other thing that I am very, very interested in and have been very financially committed to cause therapy costs a lot over the years, is getting myself to a state of consistent contentment and calm. There were times in my life when I have not been super happy or in a great place.
And so I have really spent time and effort working on making sure that I can be consistently really content. And a lot of my issues were, you know, situational, not chemical. So, you know, I'm lucky in that respect. But I really value mental health.
I think it's very important and I think it's very important to invest in making sure you have the best mental health that you possibly can because it affects so many other things.
And I would look at this machine that seemed to both prey on and sort of put a rocket up people's narcissism and insecurity in this most terrifying mix that felt so psychologically perilous. I was like, people are saying or appearing very confident. But then I know
and I would sometimes meet people and work with people and know people that were portraying a certain image online. And I knew that was like, they're in their DMs, desperate for the validation, like they were not as confident as they appeared.
And of course everybody then is looking at their pages and going, well, why aren't I as good as them? And you're like, mate, they're crying themselves to sleep at night. You know, like, don't be comparing it to this.
So the whole thing just felt like it was a mental health disaster waiting to happen. And so I just stayed away from it. And I've always done that.
Yes, I have all of the things, because I'm supposed to have all of the things. And I also have a business and I mean, honest to God.
The person that does my marketing for it, like when I open my course up that they could, I mean, they're tearing their hair out at the lack of willingness to talk about the thing that I have made and have spent a lot of time and money on and feel really actually gives a lot of people a lot of value. And I can't talk about it. Because it just feels like I don't like to promote myself. It's like it just is.
There is something between social media and me. It just does not work.
So this is all a very long winded background to kind of give you a sense of why I have this can this please go away relationship with social media and sort of how that then filters in to this newfound world that I am where my daughter has come along and I am now responsible for this person and impacting her mental health. And I mean, we all know she's going to probably be in therapy for a million of the things that I do that I stuff up over time.
You can never get it all right. But I feel a sense of responsibility to try at least my very best to set her up on the steadiest ground I can do.
And then, I mean the rest of it, I've done my absolute best.
If she comes to me in 10 years time and says I want social media. I know I can't shield her from it, I can't make her friends not interested, I can't make it unimportant to her if that is the kind of world that she lives in and her school and whatever. But what I can do is that I can show her that it's not really that important in your life by making it not an important part of our lives.
So she would be excellent content. Like, she's funny, she does some silly ridiculous stuff and I've got that camera out all the time for my own personal benefit.
But I, I just don't feel that I can genuinely say to her in 10 years time social media is not important and it doesn't matter if she can then turn around and say to me, well, you've been posting photos of me for the last 10 years so it must be important to you. I don't want that mic drop scenario in my life. And I mean, let's be honest, she's probably going to have an onlyfans.
I mean, I'm probably going to have done all this work. She'll end up with a private onlyfans that I'll find out about and then I'll just move to the f ing desert and pack it all in.
But I am just giving it a shot because at this point in time I feel like that's all I can do. And honestly it's no skin off my nose. Like, oh God, I can't boast on social media about her. Oh, how terrifying. Like, well, how sad.
I just, I love posting on social media so much. How am I going to stop myself from doing it? Easy, easy.
I don't do it already and it doesn't really matter to me. So I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and I hope that it rubs off on her and that she doesn't enough with only fans. But you know what? You please keep posting photos of your kids. I love the content. I love it. I love to see them. I think they're goddamn adorable.
I wish I could post videos of her up there, but future me is not going to thank past me. And past me cares a lot about what future me thinks. So this is what I'm doing and I'm sticking with it. So thank you, Anthea, for that question.
I hope that explains where my head is at around all this stuff and hopefully it works. But honestly, we're all just cobbling this shit together, aren't we? And this could not work out, but I'll give it a crack.
And in the meantime, it means I don't have to bloody go and post anything on social media, which is always something that makes me terribly happy because I just want to live. Won't somebody let me, please. If you have a question, you're more than welcome to ask it. As I say, it can be as horrible. I mean, not horrible.
It can be as honest and brutal as you want. And I'm more than happy to answer it. And yeah, I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks so much.