Mothers’ self-representations and representations of childhood on social media

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine mothers’ social media accounts that focus on children’s fashion. The authors probed children’s fashion photo practices as representations of the mothers’ extended self and the kind of childhood representations produced by the social media accounts. They also investigated mothers’ perceptions of children’s privacy when engaging in sharenting – the sharing of information about children or parenting online. Design/methodology/approach The study is based on 16 semi-structured interviews with Finnish mothers who had Instagram accounts focusing on children’s fashion. Findings Children’s fashion photos play a diverse role in mothers’ identity work. The photos can be used to express a mother’s taste and aesthetic skills, to express values, to fit into peer groups and to store memories of oneself and the children. Through the photos, representations of the prevailing Finnish childhood ideals, such as authenticity, naturalness and playfulness, are reproduced. The mothers perceived the children as part of their extended self and justified sharenting with mother- and child-centered arguments. Originality/value Through shedding light on the practices of social media fashion photography, this paper provides insights into how commercialism and social media shape cultural expectations for both motherhood and childhood. The paper contributes to previous research on sharenting, extending it to the context of fashion photography.

Validation of the online version of the sharenting evaluation scale (SES) in Iranian parents: Psychometric properties and concurrent validity

“…The present study found that the Spanish SES is a valuable scale to examine sharenting within Persian culture based on the psychometric In the present study, the results of convergent validity showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between sharing and constructs, such as social comparison, self-control, implications, and social behaviors, but no significant relationship was found between given to it (Kallioharju et al, 2023). The seeking of affirmation and positive reinforcement in sharenting is also a negative feature of the practice, which has been investigated.…”

“…Dress choices are one tool used to achieve the desired self‐representation on Instagram. Additionally, the images produce representations of childhood, circulating the symbolic meanings given to it (Kallioharju et al., 2023 ). The seeking of affirmation and positive reinforcement in sharenting is also a negative feature of the practice, which has been investigated.…”