Parenting Blogger Worried That Her Son is Not Getting Enough Likes on Instagram

A parenting blogger has recently taken to Instagram to lament her son’s lack of likes on the social media platform compared to his other siblings.

Katie Bower, a US-based blogger and mother-of-five recently celebrated her son’s birthday by sharing a photo of him on her Instagram, where she has more than 52,000 followers.

In the now-archived Instagram post, Bower first describes all the things there is to love about her son – such as his love of organising and quality time.

“And when he hugs and kisses you, you believe it,” the mum wrote – before revealing that pictures she’s shared of her son never get “as many likes.”

“I am gonna be perfectly honest… Instagram never liked my Munchkin and it killed me inside,” she wrote. “His photos never got as many likes. Never got comments. From a statistical point of view, he wasn’t as popular with everyone out there.”

She then hypothesised the reasons for his unpopularity — maybe it could be the Instagram algorithm or perhaps the fact that her son was “the baby” for a very short amount of time, and people “like babies.”

Buzzfeed director Stephanie McNeal came across Katie’s post and shared it with her Twitter followers, who were universally baffled as to why any of this could possibly matter to the child’s future confidence.

“Omg this Instagram mommy blogger is celebrating her sons bday by writing about how out of all her kids, he “statistically” performs the worse on her Instagram. And she’s worried one day it will ruin his self esteem,” she wrote alongside the following screenshots:

Bower’s post immediately sparked outrage on social media from people upset that she was judging her son by how many likes he receives on Instagram.

“Before she can teach her son ‘his value is not in online approval,’ she needs to learn that lesson herself,” one person wrote.

Another said: “If you are an IG mummy blogger who’s afraid that how many likes on your child’s pictures are going to one day hurt his self-esteem, your parenting is horrid and I feel bad for your kid.”

It’s entirely understandable that you would want your child to be popular among their peers. No one wants to be left out or to feel not very well-liked, and we’d do everything we could to ensure they felt comfortable with their peer-group and be a part of a great bunch of friends.

However.

Publicly whining that your followers don’t favour your son on a social media platform is somewhat shocking and, dare I say it, kinda horrible. Why would her son ever need to know his public engagement figures in reference to his siblings’ statistics? How would he ever discover that he wasn’t as well liked when he was six if not for his mother making a big old scene about it?

Is this really where society is headed? That we not only seek public approval for our own lives via social media likes, but take it so seriously that we burden our young children with it as well? Then lash out to our followers when it’s not enough?

The fact that Bower deleted her post citing “out of hand drama” might indicate a moment of self-reflection amid the criticism of her words. We can only hope so.

Omg this Instagram mommy blogger is celebrating her sons bday by writing about how out of all her kids, he “statistically” performs the worse on her Instagram. And she’s worried one day it will ruin his self esteem ?? pic.twitter.com/QpFfJwDOab

— Stephanie McNeal (@stephemcneal) November 19, 2018