People call out mom for using newborn as 'prop' for social media just five hours after birth

Social media is being flooded by family vloggers lately who document their daily domestic lives. Even though there is nothing wrong with the rising trend of family and parent vloggers filming their kids, several people have raised their concerns about how these parents might be oversharing to gain likes and views. They have also addressed the concern if these parents are using their infants and toddlers for popularity. Chantel Schnider—who goes by @thealexanderfamilyy on TikTok—has been under the critical radar for a peculiar reason.

Schnider posted a video of herself on September 2023, where she can be seen carrying her newborn daughter barely 5 hours after giving birth. In the text overlay of the video, Schnider mentions that she will be taking her viewers to follow her through the routine of refreshing herself after giving birth. In their popular family vlog page, the new mom can be seen entering the bathroom carrying the infant in a cozy basket.

She brings out a portable bidet and places a bunch of skincare products on the bathroom counter to freshen herself up. She follows up that routine by cuddling her baby and then eating a snack from a well-stocked cart. Her husband also joins her in the video as he takes the baby from Schnider and rocks her slowly as the mom continues her self-care routine. Many people on the internet have frowned upon the skeptical approach of the video.

A lot of them questioned the ethics of the parents for featuring their child on the internet just hours after she was born. Some noted that Schider has continued to document her pregnancy and home birth journey on the family's popular YouTube page called The Alexander Family. @meepmeep825 wrote, "I still couldn't feel my legs 5 hours postpartum. You're like Wonder Woman." @mallona23 wondered, "5 hours? Shouldn't you be in the hospital for a day though?"

@sarahmommygrandma added in support of the mom, "People have a lot to say as if we all weren't recording these moments in some way even if we didn't post them. You look beautiful and so does baby." However, @mom.uncharted, another content creator who makes videos about children and motherhood, raised a few questions about Schnider's decision to post her viral video. "I keep getting tagged in this video of an influencer who just had a baby and a lot of people are giving commentary on the lack of privacy this newborn has entered into," she said.

The second TikTok creator, Sarah–who goes by @mom.uncharted–then pointed out a few screenshots from Schnider's previous videos where she was documenting her pregnancy journey and remarked how a lot of product placements could be happening throughout the videos as everything looks extremely scripted. She concluded her video by saying how a brand new baby is probably being used as a prop for the promotion of products in their videos and she would love to hear the thoughts of the people on it.

@emilywynn1321 remarked underneath the response video, "Someone in another video said you didn't birth a baby you birthed content and brand deals and YES!! That's all this is!" @prof.verity wrote, "The commodification of every single second of our lives is an absolutely repulsive development. I hate it here." @erica_eff added, "I actually think they are placing all the products because they're trying to get sponsored."

An article published by Kate Lindsay in The Atlantic mentioned that in the United States, parental authority supersedes a child's right to privacy and socially, we have normalized sharing information about and images of children that we never would of adults. "Parents regularly divulge diaper-changing mishaps, potty-training successes and details about a child's first menstrual period to an audience of hundreds or thousands of people. There are no real rules against it. But uploading non-abusive content can be damaging, too, according to kids whose lives have been painstakingly documented online," Lindsay wrote.