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The perils of ‘sharenting’: The parents who share too much
By the age of five, many children will have had 1,500 photos of them shared online. But what happens when they grow up?
David Devore Jr is just like any other 18-year-old. On Instagram, he posts pictures with his prom date and of his college acceptance letter. On Twitter, he tweets about his favourite football team and shares clips from TikTok stars. But there is one thing that sets him apart from other kids his age: On YouTube, there is a video of him, aged seven, which has amassed almost 140 million views.
In 2009, David Jr, who lives in Florida, became one of the world’s first viral video stars when his dad, David Sr, uploaded a YouTube video of him, dazed and delirious, after a routine tooth extraction with the unassuming title: David After Dentist.
“I just wanted to be able to share it with friends and family because it made us laugh – David Jr included,” says David Sr “I didn’t think anyone else would click on it.”
But, within days, it had been watched more than four million times, and the numbers continued to rise.
David Jr was so popular he was flown around the world to appear on talk shows and on red carpets. But there was also a darker side to the attention. “People were accusing me of child abuse,” says David Sr. “One reporter said the police should be called and I should go to jail. They were attacking who I was as a parent.”
The front-line heroes of the pandemic: Young carers
Life for children tasked with caring for sick or disabled relatives has become significantly tougher during the pandemic, with much of their work going unseen and unacknowledged.
Every morning when nine-year-old Willow Kemp, from Toronto, wakes up, she hears the sound of her brother, Hunter, calling out for her. She pads along the corridor to his bedroom for “snuggles”, doing her best to lift his spirits if he is having a high-pain day.
After surviving childhood leukaemia, Hunter, 13, has been left suffering from debilitating, chronic pain that often leaves him bedbound. Despite being four years older than Willow, Hunter has nicknamed his little sister “mini-mom” because of the caring role she has taken on in his life. Although their mother, Sitara, 47, is Hunter’s primary carer, Willow helps her brother with everything from medication to fetching him what he needs, massages during episodes of chronic pain, and extensive emotional support.
“I’m the little sister but sometimes it feels like I’m the big sister,” says Willow. “Hunter has to go to hospital a lot and he likes me to go with him because it makes him feel better.”
