Man Questions If He Was Right To Delete The Instagram Account His Wife Set Up For Their Newborn Son
The man didn't want to post his son on social media.
novak.elcic / Shutterstock A man is seeking advice after posting on the subreddit ‘AITA’ (Am I The A**Hole) asking users if he was either in the right or wrong for deleting his newborn son's instagram.
The man, 33, explained that he and his wife, 30, like to keep a “low profile” when it comes to posting on their respective social media accounts.
He continued that he and his wife both have accounts on some of the most famous platforms, but they post very little.
“I personally always had a stupid prejudice about people who record every step of their life, but I respect it. I don't spew hate on anyone for that reason (or any other),” the man wrote in his Reddit post.
Recently, he and his wife welcomed a baby, and during the pregnancy the two of them promised that it was ridiculous to post several photos of their baby or “create exclusive social networks for this.”
“Until a child was born, we had very similar values about children's exposure on the internet. To exemplify, when she was pregnant, Clara only posted two pictures of her dilated belly,” the man explained.
When Daniel, their son, was born, his wife had posted several images of their baby, which annoyed him, although he chose not to say anything to her about it.
“It was a mother who had just given birth, so I considered it normal behavior. But that didn't stop as the weeks passed, and I had to complain.”
After expressing his opinion, the man said that his wife had gotten very upset, saying she loved their baby very much and that “he was the most beautiful child she had ever seen,” to which the man rolled his eyes but let it go.
When the couple’s baby was one month old, Clara announced to the man that she had made Daniel an Instagram profile.
The man immediately got mad, telling his wife that he didn’t agree with any of it 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.”
The two fought and ended with the wife going to her mother’s house. The man also went to his mother-in-law’s house and slept in the living room.
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“I wasn't going to miss my son's moments because of a stupid fight. She got even more annoyed and we went back to our house, but she refused to talk beyond the essentials to me.”
A month had passed and eventually Clara told her husband that she had deleted the Instagram account, but that she would continue to post at a lower frequency on her own profile.
The man agreed to this, saying it was the best compromise possible.
However, the man came across the profile and saw that it now had 20,000 followers when it only had 1,000 followers before.
“I thought this was bizarre. I saw her transforming too, it wasn't just pictures and videos of Daniel. She was documenting her routine,” the man revealed. “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 man also found out that his wife had lied and she had just blocked him from seeing his son’s Instagram account to think it was deleted.
When he found out, he took his wife’s phone from her hand, locked himself in the bathroom, and deleted his son's profile that had almost 30,000 followers.
“She won't talk to me, her mother claims that Clara will develop postnatal depression after all this stress,” the man wrote.
“I think this is all terribly futile and I start to think I'm a bit of an asshole for caring so much about it, but at the same time I don't want that kind of life for my son.”
The man went on to say that he just wants his son to have a normal childhood, and doesn’t want everything documented on Instagram.
Most Reddit users under the post were in agreement that the man was NTA (Not The A**Hole) in the situation.
“Your son did not consent to his life being posted online. There are studies which document the anxiety children feel when they're old enough for school and find out their entire lives since birth have been documented online,” one user commented.
Another user commented, “ A baby's social media presence is a joint decision between the parents and Clara deliberately went behind your back to do the opposite of what you'd agreed.”
Nia Tipton is a writer living in Brooklyn. She covers pop culture, social justice issues, and trending topics. Follow her on Instagram.