A husband and wife are in an argument over whether or not their newborn son should have an Instagram account.
The father, 33, said that although he and his 30-year-old wife, Clara, are “low key” when it comes to social media, when their son Daniel was born his mom created an Instagram account for him.
When he said he was uncomfortable with it, Clara said she deleted it. When he found out she had been lying and their son’s account had 30,000 followers, he felt upset.
Posting to the Am I The A**hole subreddit, the dad explained that during Clara’s pregnancy, they both agreed “it is ridiculous to post several photos a day of the child”, and said they had similar values around children’s exposure on the internet.
When she was pregnant, she only posted two pictures of her bump.
But when Daniel was born, Clara started posting more. This annoyed the Redditor, but he considered it normal behaviour. As she kept posting as the weeks wore on, he felt he had to complain to her.
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He wrote: “Clara was very upset, said that she loved him very much and that he was the most beautiful child she had ever seen. I just rolled my eyes.”
“When our baby was one month old, Clara announced that Daniel had an Instagram profile.
“I exploded and said I didn’t agree with any of this and asked her to delete it. She said I was being totally unreasonable and the child was hers so she would do what she wanted. I said that the child is also mine, and I didn’t want so much exposure.”
They fought and she went to her mother’s house, but he joined her and slept in the living room because he didn’t want to miss any of his son’s moments “because of a stupid fight”.
A month later, Clara had assured him that she deleted the profile, and said she instead planned on posting on her own profile at a lower frequency. He agreed to this, because he felt that it was a reasonable compromise.
But then he found his wife had garnered 20,000 followers.
He said: “I thought this was bizarre. I saw her transforming too, it wasn’t just pictures and videos of Daniel. She was documenting her routine. I’m not a controlling person and I’m not going to say what my wife can and can’t do with her own image.
“The big problem is that I found out she lied to me.
“I was blocked from my son’s instagram to [make me] think it was deleted. When I found out, I took the cell phone from my wife’s hand and locked myself in my bathroom. I deleted the profile of almost 30,000 of Daniel’s followers while listening to Clara screaming outside.”
Now Clara won’t talk to him. Her mother fears she will develop post-natal depression “after all this stress”.
The Redditor said he feels it is all “terribly futile” and fears he’s being an “a**hole” for caring so much about it.
He concluded the post by asking for outsider opinions on his handling of the situation.
The top comment, with 11,000 upvotes reads: “How creepy to give the world access to your child for followers. NTA [not the a**hole].”
Another commenter highlighted their concern over Clara’s “lack of co-parenting and conflict resolution skills” as she lied about the profile.
They wrote: “This is less about Instagram, and more about you being able to trust her. It’s about you being able to communicate with her. It’s about her telling you the truth and not hiding things from you. All of this is important enough that I think you need a good marriage counsellor. Where this is heading is not good.”
However, another highlighted that although his concerns are valid, he shouldn’t have deleted the Instagram account. On the other hand, she lied to him, and they can see why he would be angry over that.
Some guessed that the Instagram pages could give her “some form of validation” if she’s been struggling postpartum.
What’s your take on this situation?
