00:00:26.080In fact, Tia, our wonderful caregiver, the incredible woman who helps me take care of my kids, who helps me raise my kids, she can explain what happened a little bit better than I can.
00:00:38.340This woman came up to me and she knew Bea.
00:00:41.580She used to babysit for Bea, she said, and she knew you.
00:00:45.360And then she was asking about if you still work at Penn, if you still teach there or anything and how the family is.
00:01:19.280I was freaked out that this stranger was asking questions about my kids,
00:01:24.880who she had clearly never met. But a part of me also questioned myself because I'm like, well,
00:01:32.160what? Did I just forget this woman? Is this my fault? Because the first months after you have
00:01:37.540a newborn baby are just kind of like being blackout drunk on tequila. So I blew it off.
00:01:43.620I blew it off. Even though I made a whole episode about how strangers can see our kids on Instagram.
00:01:49.140It's called the Sharon hood. If you haven't listened yet, it's going to freak you the F out.
00:01:53.620But I didn't think about it again until this influencer that I follow, Jess Kirby, posted something on her feed that made it absolutely inescapable.
00:02:03.380I wasn't going to say anything about this on here.
00:02:09.460But I'm so pissed off right now that I don't care.
00:02:13.460Someone went up to my babysitter at the park.1.00
00:02:16.020make a long story short she made up a whole thing about how she was my college roommate1.00
00:02:21.300and wanted my phone number first of all all of it was a lie I'm pretty sure she gave her a fake name
00:02:28.560and I'm just like I I'm just truly shook at how inappropriate and insane the whole
00:02:41.260scenario it was there's just so many things wrong with the whole interaction obviously my sitter
00:02:51.620didn't give her my number she told her to send her a dm if she wants to contact me um but i've
00:02:58.360completely deleted marin from my social media i'll never post her on here again save me the dms
00:03:04.040lecturing me about the fact that i shouldn't have my kid on instagram like i don't need to hear that
00:03:08.380right now. If you don't see what is so wildly wrong with that interaction, I don't know what
00:03:14.980to tell you. But I hope for this person's sake, I never find out who it is.
00:03:25.560I called Jess to talk because I needed someone to connect with who had gone through something
00:03:31.020similar. And unlike some people, I wasn't going to make a live video and say, oh my gosh, look
00:03:36.760what happened to me in the Michaels parking lot. So yeah, I rang her up. Hi. Hi. Oh, hang on. Sorry.
00:03:44.420Let me shut my door. Yeah, no worries. Also, you're going to be able to hear my kids. I asked her to
00:03:48.000walk me through step by step exactly what happened to her. My babysitter was at the park with my
00:03:53.900daughter. And we live in a small town. So everybody kind of knows everyone. And I've had people like
00:04:02.020reach out before on Instagram to say like, oh, I think I saw your daughter at the park. She's so
00:04:09.180cute. Or a friend of a friend will go up to my sitter and say, oh my God, is that, you know,
00:04:14.500Jess's daughter? And it's not weird to me because it's like, yeah, you know, obviously they've seen
00:04:19.080her picture online. That feels normal. But a woman approached my daughter in the park and
00:04:25.460addressed her by her name. And my sitter was kind of taken aback because it was just like,
00:04:31.080she went up to my daughter first and my sitter didn't recognize her. So she just kind of picked
00:04:37.980her up and went over to the swings and was like, that was weird. And then the woman came up to her
00:04:43.560again at the swings and told her this whole story about how we went to college together
00:04:49.820and we were college roommates and the college that she said I went to, I didn't go to. So
00:04:55.480that was the first red flag for my babysitter. And then she told her this whole story about how
00:05:01.000She had bumped into my partner Craig and I downtown the week before, and we had had drinks, which also wasn't true, and then asked my babysitter for my contact information so that she could set up a play date with my daughter and her son.
00:05:18.080and that was when my babysitter was just like this is not okay took my daughter got in the car0.99
00:05:24.700left the park and immediately called me and I flipped I flipped my shit0.95
00:05:32.640first of all the thing that I still can't wrap my head around and I try not to think about it too0.98
00:05:38.780much because I will spiral is the lying like the made-up story I don't understand that I don't
00:05:46.520understand why she made up all these things. And I don't understand if she wanted to get in touch
00:05:53.180with me, why she wouldn't just send me a message on Instagram, which my babysitter told her to do.
00:06:00.100She didn't give out my contact information. So kudos to her. But yeah, I mean, I basically1.00
00:06:05.280immediately hung up from that phone call from my babysitter and just wiped my daughter offline
00:06:24.300She made the decision so quickly, the way that I think only a mother can do.
00:06:29.480She took her daughter's image offline.
00:06:31.560She's like, we're not doing this anymore.
00:06:33.580And this matters because Jess makes content about her life.1.00
00:06:38.220So scrubbing any part of it means scrubbing parts of it that make her money.1.00
00:06:44.600Let me put Jess Kirby's career in perspective so that we can understand what it meant for her business to take her kid off all of her pictures.1.00
00:06:55.460Years and years ago, Jess moved to New York City hoping to get a job in fashion.
00:07:00.720but let's be honest, getting a job in fashion or fashion magazines is really hard without
00:07:06.440connections or family money to support you while you work for free. So Jess was not any of those
00:07:11.700people. She wasn't. She started a blog, mostly just taking pictures of her outfits, and eventually
00:07:17.340she's like, fuck New York. She moved home to Newport, Rhode Island with her partner,0.99
00:07:21.840kept posting things on the blog and on the social media. She started writing more and more about
00:07:26.900sustainable fashion, and then she got accidentally pregnant. And so that, again, sort of shifted my
00:07:36.300content a bit, mainly just because my pregnancy was brutal. Once I finally shared that I was
00:07:43.280pregnant, it was just a lot of me talking about how difficult of an experience it was, partially
00:07:51.480because i could barely work i could barely get out of bed for more than more than half of it
00:07:57.300and then it's kind of you know it's kind of just morphed from there it all morphed from there into
00:08:04.540an instagram account with 137 000 followers she's got a beautifully curated blog and there
00:08:11.160all of a sudden is bam this career that supports her entire family are you at all worried about
00:08:18.240your business not continuing to thrive with taking your daughter off? Are you like, no,
00:08:24.480it's actually not going to matter for me, for my bottom line? No. Yeah. I don't think it matters
00:08:29.880because like I said in the beginning, I knew I never wanted my business to rely on my daughter
00:08:36.600as part of my bottom line or partnership. So she was part of my content again, because
00:08:43.460you know, we have to remember a large portion of the content we share as content creators or
00:08:50.580influencers or bloggers or whatever you want to say is not paid. So that's a huge portion of the
00:08:56.360content I share. So most, so the content I was sharing with my daughter, it's not like I was
00:09:00.660getting paid for that. It's just, again, giving people a window into my life, but I think I can
00:09:05.800do that still in a way that doesn't include her or at least photos of her. So yeah, no, I'm not,
00:09:15.460I'm, I'm truly honestly not worried about that at all. You know, in a way it's probably why
00:09:22.980it was easy. It's easier for me to do it. You know, it's easier for me to just say, no, she's
00:09:28.780done because my, my bottom line does not, and has not ever relied on having her in my content.
00:09:34.060I imagine it becomes more difficult when a huge part of your brand and your business involves having your kids in it.
00:09:46.580And there are creators out there where so much more does depend on that.
00:10:18.440It just, it really made me really critically think about a lot of things, which I think is good.
00:10:22.660I think I was blissfully ignorant a little bit.0.96
00:10:26.620you know, it took a really fucked up experience to make me completely0.97
00:10:32.100reevaluate what I was doing. It always takes a fucked up experience to make us reevaluate0.98
00:10:37.600what we're doing now. Fair. I mean, everything. Like I had to date like the most fucked up guys0.99
00:10:45.540in New York City to then be like, oh, I should marry this nice guy who really likes me and1.00
00:10:50.520come on like that's what life is you've got to fuck up to be able to figure it out yeah totally0.98
00:10:58.260totally i'd ask jess kirby how our audience reacted when she took her daughter off instagram0.99
00:11:06.080because if we know anything is that everyone has a reaction to what we do on the internet as women
00:11:11.600It was incredibly supportive, zero judgment, and sad. I think a lot of bloggers and people
00:11:23.320who are on Instagram talk about how they have great communities, and they do. And I feel like
00:11:29.100I have a phenomenal community. I mean, it really is an amazing group of mostly women that are just
00:11:38.920there for each other. And I think that, you know, there's, like I said, there's a lot of women who
00:11:44.760have kids, my age, or they're raising kids, women, my mom's age, who have daughters, my age,
00:11:51.060and also people without kids who just enjoyed that aspect of my life of sharing my daughter
00:11:58.460because it was joyful. And so there was a lot of sadness about me taking her off and not sharing
00:12:05.240her anymore. But it was all just basically like, we get it. And we're sad that this had to happen.
00:12:11.780But we support you 100%. And here's the crazy thing. We're about to have, guys,
00:12:19.140guys, get ready for this. We are about to have that big aha moment. When Jess posted this video,
00:12:26.280she heard from a ton of other influencers that they were thinking about doing the same exact
00:12:31.460thing. We've talked about it so many times, but I haven't done it. No one I know has done it.
00:12:36.700No one else has taken their kids off Instagram, but just did it. And now all these women are1.00
00:12:41.500writing to her saying, maybe it's time I take my kids off my Instagram feed.
00:12:46.680It's really interesting because when I talked about my decision to take my daughter off the
00:12:52.400internet after everything that happened, and one, I was met with a lot of support,
00:12:58.420But I was also met with a lot of comments from friends of mine, many of whom have much bigger followings than I have, kind of saying, you know, we're phasing out having our kids online.
00:13:14.180And I do wonder if we're going to see a movement of people more and more, not just people who live their lives on the internet, everyone kind of rethinking having their kids online.
00:13:25.660I think about this every day, taking my kids off the social media, and still, I don't do it. And then I hate myself for not doing it. And then I take another picture of them. And I post it, maybe because I'm a terrible, terrible, selfish mother. And I said this to Jess.
00:13:43.380As much as I'm trying to phase my kids out, I do.
00:14:35.840this community of people that's saying
00:14:37.980like oh my god we love her she's so cute but that's not for her that's for me same and and
00:14:45.820i'm not i'm not saying that that's all bad i think as mothers and as women like we deserve validation
00:14:53.200this point this right here hit me really hard we talked about this all last season none of this is
00:15:01.460anything new but again it's really hard to break a habit and I wanted to ask myself why do I share
00:15:08.560pictures of my kids I said this before too I can blab about how I want their relatives to see them
00:15:15.040blah blah blah but if I'm honest and it's freaking hard to be honest it's all for me just for me0.82
00:15:22.540like I said it just it makes me feel like I freaking suck when I stripped it all away and
00:15:29.300I just asked myself the question, why are you sharing her? It was for me. I can't justify that,
00:15:38.860you know? So, and I'm not saying that to say like anyone should feel bad about sharing their kids
00:15:46.780online. I'm not, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying it's all bad. It's just from, for,
00:15:52.220from a personal decision it was like no this is this feels right to just totally
00:16:00.060strip it all away and and honestly I have no regrets I really don't and I mentioned this
00:16:09.140before but a lot of women who also do what I do saying this is horrifying and this is making me
00:16:17.820rethink how I share my kids online. I think more and more people are just starting to evaluate
00:16:29.520their relationship with it and their relationship with social media in general. I deleted Twitter
00:16:34.340years ago. I don't even have a Twitter account. I don't go on Facebook. And it's funny because
00:16:39.300I have friends who are kind of also in this world who are like, how do you not, you live in like a
00:16:47.480bubble, but your job is literally to be an influencer, a blogger, an Instagram or whatever.
00:16:53.660But I've been able to make it work. I feel like there's this pressure when you do this for a job
00:17:01.500that you have to be everywhere and do everything. And I found a way to do it without doing that.
00:17:07.980And I had to. I had to for my own mental health. And also just because I want to live my life.
00:17:16.080i don't want to be tied to my freaking phone all day social media and instagram it's so brand new
00:17:25.160and i don't think that we give ourselves and like we don't say enough about how new it is and how we
00:17:30.180don't know how to navigate it and we don't know what we're doing and so if we could just honestly
00:17:34.100ask these questions and i don't post your kids don't post your kids like i'm i feel i'm like i
00:17:39.500give everyone the grace to do what whatever i'm like don't put don't lock your kids in a dog cage
00:17:44.280But as long as you're not letting your kids in a dog cage, then cool, you do what is right for you.
00:17:51.800But I think hearing what other women are doing and why we're making those decisions, it helps all of us figure things out a little bit better.
00:18:02.220Well, and to be honest with you, and I told you this when you had emailed me, I hadn't listened to your podcast before you had reached out.
00:18:09.400I listened to the whole thing afterwards. And when I listened to your Sharenting episode,
00:18:18.120it just, it sent me into a little bit of a spiral because all I thought about was
00:18:24.240like, oh my God, what am I doing? Even if it's with good intentions and I'm not
00:18:32.780quote-unquote exploiting her I'm I'm putting her on the internet and she's a baby and what
00:18:41.820is that going to mean five to ten years from now for her so that really freaked me out
00:18:49.360and and also just honestly I felt like for me validated my decision to not do it anymore
00:18:56.260okay so Jess inspired me once more to again reconsider what I'm doing I just got back from
00:19:07.840a family vacation in Wyoming was lovely really lovely it was the best and I posted a bunch of
00:19:13.120pictures of my family and my kids and now I've got to take them off but I keep thinking about
00:19:21.980the economic realities of why I stay on Instagram. And this is an economic reality. I am not an
00:19:27.940influencer. We know that. Terrible being an influencer. But I do write books. And Instagram
00:19:32.800is a way that I reach people who might read my books. And I have a new novel coming out in the
00:19:38.740fall. Big plug, guys. Please pre-order it. Please, everybody, so I can get the fuck off Instagram.
00:19:44.060It's called We Are Not Like Them. It's really lovely. But I really do most of my marketing0.87
00:19:49.660on Instagram and I can't just post books, books, books, books, books all the time. That doesn't
00:19:54.220feel authentic. And besides, we know the Instagram algorithm won't give me any engagement from that
00:19:59.020Instagram algorithm overlords want babies, babies, babies. And I, but okay, just, but just made me0.97
00:20:08.720think, what does my Instagram account look like without my kids? What if I just wipe it? What if
00:20:12.580I wipe most of it clean? What if I take 80% of the pictures of my kids off my Instagram account