Lawmakers and courts often assume that parents know best and are reticent to pass laws or judgments that may limit a parent’s freedom in raising their children.^[1] But does this assumption hold when parents can profit from the infringement of their children’s privacy? “Sharenting,” a combination of “sharing” and “parenting,” refers to parents posting their children on social media sites to share family milestones, daily routines, or parenting styles with an online community.^[2] For many, this audience is only close friends and family. But some parents broadcast their children’s lives to millions of viewers on social media platforms like TikTok or YouTube and can earn thousands of dollars a month doing so by partnering with advertisers.^[3]

The consequences of sharing a child’s life online are far-reaching in time and severity: a prospective employer might see a particularly embarrassing moment twenty years from now, a stranger online might see images posted and digitally alter them to create child pornography,^[4] or an obsessive viewer might mail threats to the family’s home.^[5] Aside from the way that others might use the information, the children themselves may not want to be filmed or participate in whatever activity is being “vlogged.” Not all parents respect that wish, given that the child is old enough and aware enough to communicate their wishes.^[6] Even more alarming, several of these family vlogging channels have ended in investigations of child abuse and criminal prosecutions.^[7]

These concerns have encouraged some state legislatures to step into the traditional domain of the parents and provide some financial and privacy safeguards for children. As of October 2025, seven states have specific protections for children of content creators, with Illinois being the first state to pass one of these laws in 2024.^[8] Each law requires content creators making a certain amount of revenue and featuring their children in at least 30% of their online content to establish a trust, with the child (or children, if multiple siblings are featured in the content) gaining access to the trust once they reach 18.^[9] To facilitate these trusts, the content creators must keep records of how many minutes of content include the child’s likeness, how many videos or posts feature the child, and how much revenue is generated by this content.^[10] Not only do these trusts ensure that children can be compensated for their performances with the advertising revenue they helped earn, but reallocating the profit away from the parents can also reduce the incentive for these creators to film more intrusive or excessive content. Some of the new statutes, like H.B. 322 in Utah, more directly address privacy by creating a right of deletion, which allows children to request that the content creators remove content with their likenesses from the internet.^[11] A similar “right to be forgotten” provision exists in Montana’s recently enacted bill, but places the burden on the social media platform, rather than the parent or guardian, to remove the content at the performer’s request.^[12]

With proper labor and privacy safeguards, could social media serve to compensate the typically unpaid work of parenting? With increasing childcare costs,^[13] it can be cheaper for one parent to stay home with the children rather than pay for daycare—a phenomenon that depresses women’s earnings in particular.^[14] Staying home to raise children adds to the feminization of poverty, where mothers are not compensated for their contribution to raising children.^[15] Advertising revenue from vlogs and other posts could be a second stream of income for households with stay-at-home parents. However, profits result not from the care work itself, but from posting polished content, which requires equipment, editing skills, understanding of algorithms and advertising schemes, and time. Vlogging is not a perfect solution for the problem of uncompensated childcare work,  but it is a solution in lieu of universal basic childcare income. The fact that profit comes at the expense of children’s privacy and requires additional work on top of childcare reveals the shortcomings of vlogging as compensation for care work, especially in comparison to a government-funded income program.

When several influencer families moved from California to Tennessee, viewers speculated it was because of the passage of laws protecting children of content creators in 2024.^[16] Regardless of the truth of these rumors, this small exodus illustrates the disparities in coverage and the ease of avoiding trust requirements. Nonetheless, the existing laws have room for improvement: some critics have pointed out that the laws may not apply to revenue arrangements that are negotiated directly between content creators and advertisers rather than being mediated by the social media platforms, leaving a large portion of revenue exempt from the trust requirements.^[17] Further, there are no limitations on the hours or other conditions around filming. The federal wage-and-hour law, Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA) exempts children working for parents or guardians, as well as child entertainers, from its coverage.^[18] But FLSA only sets a regulatory floor rather than preempting state labor wage-and-hour laws, leaving avenues for greater child labor protections open to state legislators. States are moving in the right direction, but more legislative action is needed to ensure homes do not become exploitative workplaces, while still protecting an avenue for families to make money in a non-traditional way.

___________
Footnotes

[1] David D. Meyer, The Modest Promise of Children’s Relationship Rights, 11 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 1117, 1118 (explaining that parental authority is protected by the Constitution and courts have strategically avoided questions of children’s rights where they may conflict with parents’ rights).

[2] Stacey B. Steinberg, Sharenting: Children’s Privacy in the Age of Social Media, 66 Emory L. J. 839, 842 (2017).

[3] Belinda Luscombe, The YouTube Parents Who are Turning Family Moments into Big Bucks, Time (May 18, 2017), https://time.com/4783215/growing-up-in-public/.

[4] 2024 Update: Understanding the Rapid Evolution of AI-Generated Child Abuse Imagery, Internet Watch Foundation (last visited Oct. 31, 2025), https://www.multistate.us/insider/2025/6/25/protecting-young-influencers-new-laws-protect-content-creators-that-are-minors [https://perma.cc/5U7L-JPVN].

[5] Amelia Tait, Their Lives Were Documented Online from Birth. Now, They’re Coming of Age, Rolling Stone (June/July 2022), https://www.rollingstone.co.uk/culture/truman-babies-youtube-family-vlogging-generation-18995/ [https://perma.cc/4598-X6GR].

[6] Id. (quoting one child performer as saying, “There were times when I was a lot younger that I didn’t want to be filmed but I couldn’t verbalise that”).

[7] Katie Mettler, This ‘YouTube Mom’ Was Accused of Torturing the Show’s Stars — Her Own Kids. She Died Before Standing Trial, Washington Post (Nov. 13, 2019), https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2019/11/13/popular-youtube-mom-who-was-charged-with-child-abuse-has-died/ [https://perma.cc/R3JL-8LK9]; Alex Hern, FamilyOFive: YouTube Bans ‘Pranksters’ After Child Abuse Conviction, Guardian (July 19, 2018), https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/19/youtube-bans-familyofive-pranksters-michael-heather-martin-child-abuse-conviction [https://perma.cc/KNZ4-626P]; Mattea Bubalo, Who Is Ruby Franke, the Parenting Influencer Jailed for Child Abuse?, BBC News (Feb. 21, 2024), https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66719859 [https://perma.cc/C3KG-UJTL].

[8] Kim Miller, Protecting Young Influencers: New Laws Protect Content Creators That Are Minors, MultiState (June 25, 2025), https://www.multistate.us/insider/2025/6/25/protecting-young-influencers-new-laws-protect-content-creators-that-are-minors [https://perma.cc/F3KY-LXMH].

[9] Id.

[10] Id.

[11] Utah Code Ann. § 34-23-504 (West 2025).

[12] H.B. 392, 69th Leg. (Mont. 2025).

[13] We Analyzed 5 Years’ Worth of Childcare Prices. Here’s What We Found, U.S. Dep’t of Lab. Blog (Sept. 30, 2024), https://blog.dol.gov/2024/09/30/we-analyzed-5-years-worth-of-childcare-prices-heres-what-we-found [https://perma.cc/954P-DJBN ] (explaining that childcare costs rose in a majority of counties from 2013 to 2018); Adam Grundy, Rising Cost of Child Care Services a Challenge for Working Parents, U.S. Census Bureau (Jan. 9, 2024), https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2024/01/rising-child-care-cost.html [https://perma.cc/EYT9-TU5Z].

[14] U.S. Dep’t of Labor, Women’s Bureau, Childcare Prices in Local Areas: Initial Findings from the National Database of Childcare Prices 9 (Jan. 2023), https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/WB/NDCP/508_WB_IssueBrief-NDCP-20230213.pdf (finding that counties with higher childcare prices have lower rates of maternal employment).

[15] Kim Brooks, Forget Pancakes. Pay Mothers, N.Y. Times (May 8, 2020), https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/08/opinion/sunday/women-housework-coronavirus-mothers-day.html [https://perma.cc/3XHN-6U27].

[16] Rebecca Jennings, Are Family Vloggers Really Leaving California to Avoid Paying Their Kids?, Vulture (Mar. 5, 2025), https://www.vulture.com/article/family-vloggers-california-child-labor-laws.html [https://perma.cc/5LXV-AVBN].

[17] Id.

[18] 29 U.S.C. § 213 (West).