Caught in the spotlight

Celebrities posting pictures of their children online has become quite common, although one wonders how the publicity may affect them in the future. Take the case of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who recently posted adorable pictures of his daughter Ziva on Instagram. Others, like Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna are quite guarded about their children. With the massive circulation of pictures online, would these children look back and wish they were not exposed to all that attention?

One such incident was faced by a celebrity chef who did not wish to be named. Her 10-year-old son came to her one day and asked her to take down the picture that she had put up on Facebook since his friends were teasing him about it. “The pictures  make him get too much attention, which he doesn’t like. He especially does not like it when people ask him if he too wants to be a chef like me. He wants to make his own identity and says, ‘I want to be a scientist. Why do people keep asking me if I want to be a chef?’”

Namrata Shirodkar, actress and wife of superstar Mahesh Babu shares her opinion on putting up pictures of their children. “Before I post a picture, I make sure that it’s not something that my kids are going to be embarrassed about. It will be more like a memory for them. One can always choose the option of making it public to just friends for security reasons,” she says.

But shouldn’t the kids have a say in it? Diana Monteiro, a psychologist explains how it could possibly affect celebrity children. “When the child whose pictures are being put up is as young as 3 or 4 years old, it is not going to affect them. But if they are a little older, they might be conscious of the number of likes or the number of shares thier picture gets. Other than that, a child may have an over-inflated sense of oneself or a poor sense of oneself even without being exposed to such fame. At the end of the day, what matters is how the child is raised and that they understand humility,” she says, and adds that parents must keep the risk of cyber crime in mind.

Sucharita, also a psychologist, says, “Every child should have the right to a normal life. If they are so exposed in the media, they may have a mindset that they are different than the others in some way. The current generation of actors like Rana, Allu Arjun, etc. come from film families. They were quite popular too, but still had a comparatively normal life, because they didn’t have social media back when they were kids,” she says and adds, “Parents should keep in mind the child’s personality. If the child is shy or reserved, exposing them to the public may not have a good impact. But, some kids like to bask in the glory and that’s perfectly alright.”