17-year-old stands firm against influencer mom, refuses to let her post pictures of him on social media, putting strain on their relationship

Author image for Ely Bulnes
Ely Bulnes • Writer and Editor
Nov 3, 2025 1:00 PM EST

Growing up in this social media-centric age is not easy! Everyone around you is always carrying around a high-quality camera with instant access to the internet, ready to capture and immortalize any awkward or embarassing moment and share it with the world. It's even worse when the person pointing that camera is your influencer mother. For one teen, what should have been a happy milestones – getting a car for his birthday – turned into a painful standoff between him and his mother over one simple request: don't post me online!

According to this 17-year-old , his mom has been posting every photo she can find for her thousands of followers to see, from his baby pictures to candid shots of him sleeping. Despite him repeatedly telling her that it makes him uncomfortable, she has always brushed it off, insisting that as his mother she has the right to share whatever she wants. Things finally came to a head when she took a photo of him with his new car and tried to post it, joking in the caption that he "doesn't like having his picture taken." When he confronted her and explained how much it bothered him, she lost her cool and essentially disowned him on the spot. 

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  • 01

    AITA for not wanting to get posted online then getting told that I'm no longer her son?

    Cheezburger Image 10570887936
    via amazingmikael from Getty Images Pro

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    I don't know if this the right place to ask about this but I just need some help. So my mum (51F) and I (17M) recently went to pick up
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    my car that she got me for my birthday. When they handed over the keys, they asked if I wanted a photo. I declined since I don't like
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    having my photo taken and I was in my lazy outfit. My mum told me to pose beside the car so she can take a photo for the memories
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    and I just did it cause I didn't want to argue with her in the dealership.
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    Cheezburger Image 10570888448
    via Ornán Rodríguez Velázquez from Pexels

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  • 07
    Fast-forward to a few hours later, I went to go buy some dinner on the way home and left my mum behind in the car. When I returned, she was mid-way
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    through typing some caption on Facebook and I could see it was the photo she took of me beside my car. Some context is that like
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    a few years ago, she made her social media public and basically went down this influencer route.
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    This started to annoy me because everything she posted since she first got Facebook, including baby photos and just
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    ones of me growing up overall, are all on the internet for everyone to get.
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  • As cute as it is to see viral videos on Instagram of kids trick-or-treating, helping their parents cut up veggies on tiny cutting boards, or playing with cats, it is pretty weird to realize that hundreds of thousands of other people have seen them too. 

  • 12
    Cheezburger Image 10570888192
    via South_agency from Getty Images Signature

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 13
    The whole drive home I was telling her how I don't like being posted online, which she knows, she even put on the caption for
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    that photo "Even though he doesn't like his photo taken" like she was trying to tease me. She brought up how my friends
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    posted me for my birthday, which I said that my friends have photos of me which I don't mind being posted and would happily take it down if I asked them to.
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  • 16
    She said that she was my mother and she had a right to post me, and I replied saying I don't care if she's my friend or partner, I still
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    hate being posted online. I tried reasoning with her bringing up examples of how people in the past found her account and used photos of me to make fun of me.
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  • 18
    She just replied with "Then remove and unadd me on social media." Like that would make any
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    difference. When we pulled up to our house she just told me that she was no longer a mother and she has no son.
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    Cheezburger Image 10570887680
    via Jack F from Getty Images

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 21
    It's been two days since she's told me that and I've just been locked in my room the entire time. Only time I've been out is
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  • 22
    when she was at work or went to bed so I'd avoid being in the same room as her. Tonight, it was my turn to cook dinner so I went
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  • 23
    out to do that and served her a plate but that was just it. No words were exchanged. I'm just trying to understand if I did something wrong or I should
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  • 24
    have just let her post me. I feel like it's my fault kinda since I do let my friends post some photos of me but still, majority of my friends who have posted me
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  • 25
    before have private pages with only like 200 followers while my mum has over 3k followers. She has also posted photos of me in compromising positions, like me
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  • 26
    sleeping in the privacy of my room that I didn't even know about until I went to my mums work to go home with her and a co-worker of hers brought it up
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    and started laughing. I just don't want a repeat of that. Currently, she hasn't posted the photo which I'm glad she hasn't.
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family drama entitled parents mother teenagers relationships parenting raising teens social media family raising kids mom Parenting Fail parents
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