Maria Foy: parenting blogger explains why she's pulling back from sharing her kids on social media

As social media advances, some parenting influencers have pulled back on posting their kids for fear of their digital footprint and other safety concerns.

The founder of Happy Mum Happy Child, Maria Foy, revealed she's pivoted from her 'mumfluencer' brand and stopped posting her kids as they've gotten older and voiced concern about the consequences.

Foy says kids deserve their privacy - and she doesn't feel comfortable sharing their intimate moments as teenagers. 

"Now they're coming up to a point where I don't feel comfortable talking about certain things - even though as a parent, you yearn for that connection...but they deserve that privacy."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ever do for see, Ellen, looks like so called parent
influences may be starting to get a little bit more
careful about putting their kids' pictures online. When I say
parent influences, you know what I'm talking about, right. These
are the mums and dads who post pictures that're we
ones doing cute or wacky things online and then in
return they get paid for it in money or products.
Now one of these parent influences is Maria Foy, who

(00:21):
runs the Facebook and Instagram pages Happy Mum, Happy Child
and Maria's with us. Hey Maria, Hey, how are you well?
Thank you? Are you pulling back and putting the kids up?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yeah? I mean absolutely pulling back on it. But it's
more of an age thing, to be honest.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Oh really, what's happened? What age have you hit?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well, I'm talking about their age. They're getting into the
teenage years and they you know, I made the decision
on their behalf. When they were younger, I was very
careful about what I shared. But now they're coming up
to a point where I don't feel comfortable talking about
certain things, even though as a parent you yearn for
that connection. It doesn't matter really what you're talking about

(01:01):
but they deserve that privacy, especially when they're coming into
those hormone filled teenage years, and so it just kind
of naturally has well.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
At least us as well. Maria, I don't want to like,
I want to look at picture I want to look
at pictures of you two year old doing cute things,
but you're eleven year old at the least.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
So yeah, absolutely absolutely, And they don't want to be
up there at all. Their friends are a lot more
aware of what's going online than they were when they
were two. So it's it's been a very.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
You know, easy decision.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
To make, but also a very subtle thing that's just
kind of happened in the background now.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
And your son, I understand, actually doesn't like his photos
up at all.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
No, he actually doesn't really like his photos being taken,
even in a family setting. So I made a we
had a big chat together him and I and we
made a decision that if I was going to take
any photos, that would just been for us here in
this family and nothing would go online, and between both
my children, so my son and my daughter there would
always be consent. So by my daughter always has the

(01:58):
final say if something goes up. You know it's often no,
and that's absolutely fine.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
And do you think that there are risks with doing
this but not not with listening to the kids? I mean,
that's okay to a point. But do you think that
there are risks with putting out pictures of toddlers if
you are a mum influencer.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Absolutely. I mean I think I'd be a naive to
say no, oh, absolutely, there's predators out there nowadays. I mean,
people that think the worst things over something so simple,
and you know, something that wouldn't occur to you to
be taken the faiously will be taken a fairly now
In saying that, I believe that's a small percentage, but

(02:38):
it's still a chance.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Absolutely. What about the digital footprint. I mean, if you're
sticking up pictures of a two year old and by
the time they get to, you know, fifty two, there's
fifty years or photos of them.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Absolutely. I think for me personally, I just made when
we made that decision to continue posting what we were posting,
it was always from a respect and a respectful manner,
so that anything that went online, if they were to
grow up and look back on it, I would like
to think that they would be okay with what I'd
done and the decisions that I'd made, and it wouldn't
be embarrassing for them at all.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
What's the best payment or product that you got?

Speaker 2 (03:17):
I think for us as a family, our trip to
Australia with Netflix was pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
For how long? And did you go first class?

Speaker 2 (03:25):
No? Absolutely not first class. No, we just went for
the weekend. It was just such a fun thing to
do as a family and the kids had a blasts.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
So oh yeah, Maria, thanks very much. Maria fory parent Influence,
the owner of Happy Mum, Happy Child. Best one I've
heard is a free pool pool installed that hard to
beat a pool. Do you know what you what a
pool costs? It's like one hundred, two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. That's awesome. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,

(03:56):
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