Comment on this storyComment
“Day in the life of a boss baby,” a voice says over a video of an infant crying in an electronic swing. “My mommy set me down for two seconds, which was more than enough. I want to be held 24/7.” The video continues, detailing 4-month-old Isla’s day, which includes meeting extended family for the first time and calling her mother a cow and her father a limo driver. It ends with a shot of the baby being rocked in a gray bouncy seat, wooden pacifier clipped to a cable-knit dusty rose sweater. “And then when I get home I make my cow rock me until her limbs are gonna fall off. The end. Stay tuned for [the] next video!”
On TikTok, #dayinthelife videos give users a glimpse into an astonishing variety of worlds. A quick scroll through the hashtag nets videos through the perspective of an 18-year-old fashion student, a kindergarten teacher, an airline pilot, a paralegal, a golden retriever puppy and (probably satirically) a billionaire’s stay-at-home girlfriend.
The latest iteration of day-in-the-life content is focused on the lives of babies and toddlers, as narrated by their parents using a voice filter, imagining what their child is thinking through the day. The videos feature clips of children waking up, throwing tantrums, playing with siblings and looking at their parents questioningly. The narration ranges from sweet (“My mommy put me in a really cute outfit”) to crass. The views reach into the tens of millions, with users commenting eagerly for the next video and seemingly forming attachments to the pint-size creators.
“I came up with the idea because I saw a video of this cat and I thought it was so funny,” said Kaylie Varney, Isla’s mom. “I was like, what if I did this as a day-in-the-life with my baby? We started doing it and people were so happy and kept asking for more.” Varney, 24, has more than 574,000 followers on TikTok where she posts about being a mother of three, marrying her high school sweetheart and life from the perspective of her youngest daughter, 4-month-old Isla.
In the comments section of Varney’s video, users beg for more content of Isla, talk about how much they love her, and ask for shout-outs. “I think people like the videos because we make them relatable for parents,” Varney said. “They’re also really cute and bring a smile to people’s faces.”
Day-in-the-life videos are the latest iteration of parents using social media to document their children’s lives and gain massive audiences that can generate income in some cases. Heather Armstrong, widely recognized as the first hugely successful “mommy blogger,” rose to fame in the early aughts through her candid sharing of motherhood, postpartum depression and the banal details of keeping a house running. (Armstrong died by suicide in May at the age of 47.) Armstrong’s astronomical success spurred other women to follow in her footsteps, from early adopters like “Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond and Jessica Shyba of Mommas Gone City, whose blog became a sensation when she began posting photos of her son and puppy napping together (Theo and Beau), to the Instagram momfluencers of today, like Savannah LaBrant.
The creators of day-in-the-life baby and toddler TikToks view the content as a way to make light of the heavy demands of motherhood, memorialize childhoods that seem to pass all too quickly and connect with other caregivers. In the videos, the baby narrators joke about their parents’ shortcomings (“Please don’t laugh at my outfit, my mom keeps dressing me and she just doesn’t have any sense of fashion”), show off their burgeoning skills (“Look at me, I can even touch my feet”) and lay bare the emotions of parenthood (“Of course when Mom cries, I cry because I’m her emotional support baby”).
But the issue of privacy comes right along with any online sharing, particularly of children and their lives.
Emily Kline, a clinical psychologist, sees this TikTok trend as the latest version of mothers going online to seek community. “Parents wonder: ‘Does this feel like so much work because I’m doing it wrong? Are other people putting in this much work, too? If I were more competent in this role, would my kids just make fewer messes and listen the first time?’ These videos are a way of posing that question to a very large audience.”
Kline sees why the videos are popular: They normalize the daily struggles and work of motherhood. But she also worries about the privacy of the children featured in the videos. “It involves real children who can’t consent to participating in the creation of the content,” she said.
“If Isla didn’t like them when she grew up, I’d obviously delete them, but I think she’ll be thankful she has these clips to look back on,” Varney said. “I wish my family took more videos and pictures of me growing up. We’ll basically have a time capsule.”
Mary Jean Amon, an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida who studies how people make decisions regarding online sharing, said researchers are only just beginning to understand the effects of young children being featured in online content. Amon understands that sharing can be a way of showing parental affection, highlighting a child’s accomplishments, storing happy memories and getting positive feedback. But it could have repercussions later. “The positives of parental sharing are so immediate, in terms of those feelings of connectedness to family and friends … that it’s hard to perceive the potential long term consequences,” Amon said. “It’s also easy to think that your child is an extension of the self … and it’s easy to assume the child will feel very similar to the parent in terms of their future preferences. But that’s just not always the case.”
Sara Louise Petersen, author of “Momfluenced: Inside the Maddening, Picture-Perfect World of Mommy Influencer Culture,” understands the intention of the videos in the context of a culture with no federally mandated maternity leave, a “motherhood penalty,” which pays mothers less than fathers, and the lack of a so-called village to help mothers raise their children. “Women and caregivers are placed in an impossible situation in this country in terms of finding ‘work-life balance,’” Petersen said. “So I have endless empathy for aspiring momfluencers. But all roads seem to still end with a privacy and consent issue. This baby still can’t consent and doesn’t have any clue about privacy.”
Avery Woods, 28, posted her first day-in-the-life video through the eyes of her toddler Stevie in April. The video immediately took off, with Woods gaining a million followers in just a few weeks. She narrates her daughter’s hypothetical thought process throughout the video: “Then my mom had to piss me off like she usually does by doing my hair while I ate my mediocre-ass breakfast. Today was a frozen waffle and like three pieces of fruit because she thinks that makes it healthy.”
If you’re worried about the cursing, Woods thinks you’re being too sensitive — to her, the cursing makes Stevie’s monologues funnier and truer to the reality of raising a toddler. And not all of her followers are parents. “I think it’s really funny when young girls that are in their 20s are like, ‘This is the only birth control I need today.’ I’m like, well, good. I’m glad I could help you out.”
Woods hopes her videos, which feature moments like Stevie throwing a tantrum, normalize the difficulties of parenthood. She remembers when her older son hit toddlerhood and she was plagued with doubts: Was she a bad mother because he was throwing a tantrum? Was his behavior normal? “But I didn’t have anyone to relate to,” she said. “I wish I would have seen videos like Stevie’s and been like, ‘Oh, that’s what my toddler is doing.’”
Fortesa Latifi is a journalist based in Los Angeles. Find her on Twitter @fortesalatifi.
Gift this articleGift Article
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/parenting/2023/07/11/day-in-the-life-tiktok-babies/