Committing to life together in a marriage means that you support each other’s dreams, right?
Well, according to one Reddit user this week, that’s not always possible. In fact, your partner’s dreams may actually go directly against your own personal moral compass.
Writing on the AmITheAsshole subreddit, user throwrasutwy said: “My wife wants to be an influencer on TikTok and YouTube. She has been creating mommy content and content about her day to day life.”
So far, so normal. According to data from Mintel, around 1 in 10 social media users consider themselves to be content creators and this number increases to 28% for Gen Z social media users.
However, the husband had one stipulation for his ambitious wife. He said: “I don’t want our children (4m, 2f) in ANY of her content.”
I’m sure you can see where this is going.
“If you don’t delete it I will consider a divorce”
The user went on to say: “I didn’t monitor her channel because it didn’t really seem necessary.
“I recently watched her channel because I thought it [would] be cute to see what she does in her day to day life. I found our children’s faces in almost all of her content.”
The user has a distaste for this kind of content in general. He explained: “I told her straight up she needs to remove all of her content,
“She said that she knew I wouldn’t agree but she doesn’t think this is a big deal. I don’t like children [based] content, I feel like a lot of the time when you see that children make profit they become less of your kids and more of a product and your interactions become more performative.”
The poster’s instinct is likely correct. A child of influencers spoke with Teen Vogue last year and revealed that not only do they resent being the sole earner in the home since their parents left work to be full-time content creators making parenting content, they also plan on going no-contact once they move out.
The Reddit poster revealed that he’s seen a shift happen in his family’s relationships already and said: ”[My wife] posted a video of her getting our 2 yr old out of a tantrum and how she deals with it, but how is your first instinct to record and hold a camera whilst our baby is crying?”
However, his wife isn’t keen to erase all of her content so he threatened to end their marriage.
He said: “She started crying saying that she built this up and this is her dream and deleting her content will ruin it and I said I simply don’t give a fuck, if you don’t delete it I will consider a divorce.
“I know a lot of people have children on their social media and I don’t mind an Instagram or Facebook post but to make videos seems too intimate to share.”
What the comments say
While there hasn’t been an update from the user, the top-rated comment says: “People who make profits from their kid’s misery are the [assholes] here, and it seems like your wife is more interested in being a TikTok celebrity than being a caring wife and mother.
“No one should ever be shilling out their kids for likes and imaginary internet points.”
Let’s hope they figure it out.