The other day, a well-known Spanish momfluencer announced that she had become a grandmother. Her comments quickly filled up. Many of her followers were very happy and congratulated her. But a lot of her followers were surprised and even angry at her. Angry because she had kept this pregnancy a secret and only announced it when the baby had already been born. They felt cheated.
This really got me thinking about the relationship we establish with momfluencers we follow. It seems to us that we know them so much, but the reality is that we don’t know them at all. And we only see the bits of their life they want us to see. Even more interesting I find the fact that we come to believe that we have the right to know everything about them but the reality is that we have no right at all. How does the relationship we establish with them work? Does following momfluencers make us happy? Are the relationship we establish with them, fulfilling? How do the millions of followers of momfluencers, like Ruby Franke, react when they discover she was selling a lie?
Parasocial Relationships
The relationship we establish with the influencers we follow is called a parasocial relationship (1). Parasocial relationships are very different to the rest of our social relationships because it is one sided. We develop an emotional connection with the momfluencer but the influencer has no connection to us. We may feel that we know them, but we don’t.
Why Are We Drawn to Momfluencers ?
I am not sure, to be honest and there is not a lot of research on this. It may be that we are looking for role models and we find them in momfluencers. It may be that many of us feel lonely and we feel less so when we create connections with the momfluencers we choose to follow. It may be that we find the content they post valuable and informative. Or it may be that we like a peek into other people’s lives. Whatever the reasons are, we must be getting something out of it, otherwise we wouldn’t do it.
How Do We Decide Who to Follow?
Again, there is not a lot of research (2) about this. Who you decide to follow depends on your personal values, socioeconomic status, and your culture.
Sara Petersen, author of Momfluenced, believes that women follow momfluencers who are succeeding where they think they are failing. So, for example if you find motherhood tough you may gravitate towards the influencer that makes it look easy and fun. Or if you have a very messy house and you feel bad about it, you may follow the momfluencer that keeps an immaculate house.
Be Mindful of How They Affect You
In general, research shows that mothers feel worse after engaging with the content shared by momfluencers. Specifically, mothers report feeling more anxious and envious after engaging with this type of content. Why? Because momfluencers usually show an idealized motherhood with pristine houses, perfectly behaved children, beautifully folded laundry and home-baked bread.
It is important to note that most of the studies available are correlational and therefore we cannot know if mothers who feel worse to start with are the ones more drawn to this type of social media content or whether it is indeed that engaging with this type of content makes mothers feel bad. To solve this problem, Dr Ciera Kirkpatrick designed a study (3) in 2022 that could show causality. What did she find? She found that when moms were exposed to idealized portrayals of motherhood, their levels of anxiety and envy increased. And interestingly, it did not matter if these images came from influencers or from your next-door neighbour. Engaging with idealized motherhood content makes us feel bad. The reality is that even if from a rational perspective we know that this curated idea of motherhood that many women portray is not real, our brain is not prepared to register it. Watching those super curated images of motherhood make us feel bad.
I also want to touch here on the advice some of these women give. They are not parenting experts, most of them do not hold qualifications on developmental psychology, teaching, midwifery or paediatrics. So, I would urge you to take their advice on parenting and child development with a grain of salt. Take them as personal anecdotes but not as professional advice. To give you a few examples, I have seen some of these momfluencers saying that giving birth in a hospital will damage your attachment with your baby or that giving butter to your baby will help them sleep through the night. Some of the advice they give is simply not science-based, and some can even be dangerous.
Parenting Experts: How to Decide Who to Trust
Never Forget that It Is a Business
Momfluencers are women who have chosen to monetize their motherhood through a social media (4) account. There are many different types of momfluencers: beige, neurodivergent, gay, muslim, catholic, trad moms, disabled, mormons… What they all have in common is that they perform motherhood publicly, making money through affiliate links or sponsored content. The truth is that brands love momfluencers because women are the ones who follow them, and we control around 85% of household purchases. We are also the ones choosing big tickets, like the stroller or the cot. It is estimated that millennial moms (5) have $2.4 trillion to spend. Mothers are a big market for brands. The final goal of most momfluencers is to sell you something.
Momfluencers Are Shaping Motherhood
And while momfluencers post about their parenting journey and make some money while at it, they are also shaping motherhood. For example, the gentle parenting trend became massive because it went viral on Instagram. Similarly, other parenting trends like attachment parenting also went viral in social media. Whether intentionally or not, momfluencers are shaping the way we raise our children.
Finally…
If you are a mother and you are in social media, it is almost impossible that you will escape the momfluencers because the algorithm will keep pushing them on to you. There are two things that I would advise you to do:
- Always ask yourself: Does following this person make me feel better or worse? If the answer is worse: Unfollow. Does this content help me have a good relationship with my children? If the answer is no: Unfollow.
- Try to follow ‘realistic’ momfluencers as opposed to those showing all round perfection. Realistic content is less likely to make you feel bad.
You may find these articles useful:
Sharenting: Is It Good or Bad?
On Netflix’s Adolescence: Is the Internet Raising Our Kids?
Love,
Ana
References
(1) Conde, R., & Casais, B. (2023). Micro, macro and mega-influencers on instagram: The power of persuasion via the parasocial relationship. Journal of business research, 158, 113708. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113708
(2) Beuckles, E., & De Wolf, R. (2025). Social media influencers as new agents on parenthood? A systematic review of parent influencer research and a future research agenda. Information, Communication, & Society, 28(4), 744-762. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2334913
(3) Kirkpatrick CE, Lee S. Comparisons to picture-perfect motherhood: How Instagram’s idealized portrayals of motherhood affect new mothers’ well-being. Computers in Human Behavior. 2022 Dec 1;137:107417.
(4) Blum-Ross, A. & Livingstonge, S. (2017). Sharenting, parent bloging, and the boundaries of the digital self. Popular Communication, 15(2), 110-125. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2016.1223300
(5) https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecarter/2017/06/15/millennial-moms-the-2-4-trillion-social-media-influencer/
