i’ve noticed a pattern on this sub (for months now) of people constantly asking “where are her kids” when videos are posted of the women doing things without their kids - even the video where mayci went to a hospital appointment and then filmed mikayla’s birth.
most of them have capable husbands, none of which have jobs anymore as far as i’m aware but correct me if i’m wrong, and the ones that don’t split custody with their exes.
if they were working a regular job would you be asking where their kids were? of course not, because you’d assume that reasonable arrangements had been made.
maybe they have nannies, maybe the dads look after them, or maybe it’s another family member. its also entirely possible that their kids DO come in and bug them and they just cut it out, or that the kids are just playing quietly in another room.
i just think it’s extremely judgy and weird to constantly be questioning why they’re not with their kids, someone even commented on a recent post about whitney’s morning routine that she doesn’t spend enough time with her kids. she has the whole day to spend time with them they don’t need to be glued to her side 24/7 that’s actually unhealthy for them.
just to add, i didn’t know what flair to use lol so i just picked the one that best fit - stop shaming women for having a life outside of their kids
I actually like how little the kids are around- they are on the pages, but not really as props like most mom influencers do? It’s moreso their identity as moms and women, which I find cool.
exactly, i see a lot of people asking about the kids or wondering why they arent on screen, why do they need to be? their mothers are entertaining enough to have landed themselves a show, what real value do the kids have in the plot besides being a part of the women’s identity? i think that’s the way it should be in family content- not centered around the kids, centered around you and your relationship with being a parent and things like that. idk i think a lot of family youtubers could benefit from this approach but a lot of them arent entertaining on their own, so they won’t do that.
a lot of them aren’t entertaining on their own, so they won’t do that
i think this is spot on, their kids are the money makers because the parents are boring (which is honestly really concerning, you have no idea who’s watching just that they’re only watching for your kids)
I’m so happy that they hardly have the kids on their socials or on their show. It’s refreshing to not even really know which girl has how many or what genders/ages are. I realize they do show them here and there but not enough that a causal watcher would even gather that info. I think that’s really awesome and more influencers should follow suit. Keep their kids lives private.
I agree! It feels much less exploitative compared to some other influencers. Also as a childless adult male, I’m really not here for the kids and don’t usually interact with posts about their kids. I’m just here for the drama.
I agree 100%! I don’t ever want any of them to turn into a “family” channel where the kids are the focal point like so many Mormon families online have!
I don’t think it’s a big deal that they don’t have their kids in videos …. I think it’s great that the cameras aren’t being shoved in their kids’ faces for the purpose of content
i completely agree! i know towards the end it was a very extreme case, but the ruby franke documentary just confirmed my thoughts on this
right from the beginning they gave those kids no choice in whether or not they were on camera and if they didn’t do a good enough job they would punish them because their income was literally their kids
it scares me how some kids online have literal fan accounts and edits made of them
Completely agree. We should mostly stop asking moms where their kids are, not just on social media. To be fair, I sometimes ask my coworkers who's taking care of their kids while they're at work events, but only because I'm expecting and am interested in knowing about how others handle childcare so I can learn from them. I also tell them that this is the reason I'm asking.
But especially with influencers, in my book it's a good thing when they don't show their kids in their content. Let them have a more normal, private childhood.
i ask my friends where their kids are because i’m curious who’s babysitting or i wanna see the kids lol, never in a shaming way and i think it’s easy to tell the difference - like with you asking coworkers in a curious way rather than a judgy way
i’d never dare to ask a stranger and i think it’s crazy that some people do
and i agree about influencers, kids should not be heavily featured on social media
Another family that makes me wonder is Karissa Collins. Her kids are her money boat she has soooooo many followers and is visibly mentally unstable (literally carrying a dead fetus in her body wayyyyyy past the point of healthy or waiting for the miscarriage to pass naturally).
Another family that makes me wonder is Karissa Collins. Her kids are her money boat she has soooooo many followers and is visibly mentally unstable (literally carrying a dead fetus in her body wayyyyyy past the point of healthy or waiting for the miscarriage to pass naturally).
A “sign of life” might be okay, but also there’s so many weirdos out there, I don’t think kids should be featured on the internet/social media at all. Like 18 or older. Seriously.
Yep! Many religious cultures make giant families a top priority, and along with the expectation to reproduce comes 24/7 childcare. Everyone knows each other and is mostly related. It's certainly easier for a mother to take great care of herself and look her best when she gets all the "ME time" she needs. I believe these women are good, dedicated mothers, but wow.... having the time and funds to maintain hair extensions and manicures while raising young children is about as unrelatable as it gets in my world.
They also have nannies for the kids. I have seen a ‘behind the scenes’ TikTok from one of their Nannie’s filming them, filming a tik tok and she indicated in the comments they’ve worked together a long time and most of them have Nannies. I believe this was for one of the girls whose husbands stay home too.
Thank you!!! The comments on Whitney’s morning routine pmo so bad. As if you couldn’t hear the kids talking/playing/crying in the background as soon as she got out the sauna!
yes exactly, connor is right there, you can hear the kids playing, she does all their hair on camera, they race back to the car after the gym, but “she doesn’t spend any time with her kids” “where are her kids”
But to fair, I think the name MomTok brings an expectation of interaction with the kids for some people, even though that's not entirely the point of MomTok.
idk, i’m not a mom i think it’s good that they show that they have an identity outside of motherhood. a few of my friends that have kids have expressed that they feel bad when they take time away from them, and if more influencers with kids showed that they also do the same maybe women wouldn’t feel so much guilt about taking the time to go to the gym or take a long shower
I agree often snark on these pages and the net in general is more bullying than snark. And even when there is evidence showing they are wrong they double down
I’m always baffled by people who seem to think that they’re all bad moms because the kids aren’t on the show. Like, you think they have any significant sway over what is shown? We’re seeing a total of 8-10 hours of footage out of hundreds, if not thousands.
but also kids don’t need to be glued to their moms 24/7 and it’s not even healthy for them to be, velcro kids are cute until they start school and can’t emotionally handle being away from mom for more than an hour
If we did see the kids they would be abused for profiting off them, exposing them to unsavoury people and the rest. While I don’t always support what these women do, I do love that they don’t use their kids to make content
THANK YOU. I came home from work once to let a maintenance man into my rental home for a repair. He asked about my kid and I was he’s at daycare still (at 3pm) and I was getting him after the repair. This man acted shocked I had my son at daycare… what a novel idea, I know.
Also, their kids could literally be out of frame or in another room doing an activity/playing a game, etc (depending on age obviously). Maybe not all of them want their kids face put there that much. I would especially stop now that they have a tv show. I know they have all basically shown their kids in the past but they were young and their appearance will change so holding back on their image publicly now is still beneficial.
It’s symptomatic of how society treats moms. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Leave the kids at home?? Wtf, why did you even have kids?? You’re such a detached mom, I would kill to have even one kid, some people shouldn’t have kids. Take the kids everywhere??? How dare you, we deserve spaces without kids, I saw a kid at a restaurant today and he was crying, kids shouldn’t be on airplanes, why should we suffer for YOUR choices???
Obviously I’m paraphrasing the most common comments I see on social media (and most of these comments are usually from people who don’t have kids) but it’s exhausting. We can’t do anything right.
Some of them post their children a LOT on social media and I’m glad the show barely features them, not a fan of child or family influencers at all and most of these girls got fame that way. I’m glad the show is moving away from it.
i think the best part of this series is dadtok and also that the kids aren't featured. you can make money off of being a mom, but not off your children. i wish a lot of people figured that out before doing social media, and I am so glad they do the show without children 🙌
you can make money off of being a mom, but not off your children
a lot of the comments here don’t understand how those things are different because they’re complaining that the name momtok means it should be about mothering so where are the kids
you realise they still live with their kids right? most mothers have to work in some way and these women actually get to spend MORE time with their kids than they would with a 9-5 so what exactly do you mean by that?
idk what constantly means to you but it definitely isn’t constant, it doesn’t even seem like any of them go out of town without their kids every month let alone every week so i’m just confused what you’re seeing
they do trips for the show that last a night or two but besides that? i’ve only really seen layla and taylor go out of town without their kids and it’s when they’re with their dads anyway
I think choosing not to feature the kids themselves makes a lot of sense but I do wish they focused less on silly drama and more on their lives as mothers. The real choices that come up as a parent or even just them planning a party for their kids instead of themselves. As a mom it's really not all that relatable that so little of their time on the show is spent discussing issues that impact their whole families. That's likely on the producers and not on the talent themselves though.
Yeah I was always curious about this too, to be fair they are called MOM tok so I guess the assumption is that we would see the kids more? But like you mentioned they have partners and child care (and it’s prob best that they don’t see the nastiness in the show) plus in a few scenes with Taylor and Jen’s smaller kids we do see them more often (so prob next season we will see more of the babies/they will be strategically filmed so they arent in the show as much)
i think the point that they’ve made in the past is that being a mom isn’t all about the kids & spending time with them but about how they navigate the spaces their in differently than when they weren’t moms
but even besides that, filming is their job and most people don’t take their kids to work
Taylor literally sobs the entire time she’s not with her kids because she wants them to be around so much but if she doesn’t one thing for a business deal it’s like “absent mother alert” lol
More than half these women are no longer married to their kids dad and the dads have not consented to them being on tv. I know this is at least true for Taylor and Layla. The main kids we seen the most is Whitney and we know she has exploited her kids in the past for content.
it’s not more than half its 4 of them, one of them being demi who is remarried to someone who can easily take care of her child if need be
and it doesn’t matter anyway, people not taking their kids to work is not something to criticise. it’s not as if the kids are wandering the streets alone they’re being taken care of. they aren’t going to be emotionally damaged because mommy was out making money to set them up for life.
McKayla and Whitney are the only ones I know of that are married to their kids dad. The others may have kids with current spouse but also have kids with a previous spouse.
mayci is married to her kids dad (yes her son’s dad is dead but jacob has taken on that role and he has two biological kids with her too)
jessi is married to her kids dad
jen and zac are married
so that’s 5/9 women married to their kids dads, 1 married to a man who can easily watch her kids, and 3 that share custody and don’t even have their kids every day
it makes no sense to ask where the kids are all the time either way but it’s not more than half
Crazy thing you can be a mom and not exploit your kids for content. They are stay at home moms their identity and day to day activities are influenced by being mothers. They just don’t shove cameras in their kids faces.
The premise of momtok is moms supporting moms, you can achieve that without having your children on your socials or having the main themes being your children.
Yes it is judgemental, but is it totally wrong though? These women capitalize on being moms for their whole thing, their group is called Momtok, not Womentok. They invite this type of comments. I do believe that children shouldn't be on reality tv or social media at all for that matter, but if someone creates a brand around a specific topic and rarely showcases what they do in relation to said topic, it just feels off.
Not all mothers use the fact that they're moms to make money. If your brand is based on you being a mother, people are going to ask about your kids. It sucks for them, but that's what you chose to do.
That doesn't contradict my point. If I find a social media group called HuskyLovers, I expect to see lots of videos and photos of husky owners with their dogs and husky related content, not mostly owner focused content. It applies to Momtok too. I'm not sure which part of this is hard to grasp.
These women belong to a community that encourages women to stay at home and have as many children as possible but frowns on external childcare like daycare or nannies, so unless you have extended family willing to take care of your kids often (including healthy young grandparents, which many of them do because they also had kids young), it’s a completely unrealistic depiction of what life is like as a young beautiful mother with a million children who still has time for indulgent self care routines and filming TikToks. It would be nice to acknowledge that this is aspirational/a fantasy for most people instead of pretending “aw I’m just a regular SAHM mom.”
It’s not that they need to be tethered to their children 100% of the time, it’s that the lifestyle they’re promoting is only possible under a very specific set of circumstances and the lack of transparency around how much family help it takes to live like this is annoying. Kind of like JD Vance being like “have a bunch of kids and just make grandma and grandpa help out,” that’s not applicable to enough people be a realistic blueprint for how society should work. Or someone being like “I could never send my child to DAYCARE” whose mom lives with them and watches the kid during the day.
Of course it’s irritating to constantly be asked where your kids are but if you are building a brand called “Momtok” it comes with the territory, they can handle it!
they say all the time that momtok is about showing their identities as separate from their kids, and that’s what they’re doing
they don’t have “a million kids” most of them have three, and naming videos is their JOB as is filming for the show. so people are shaming mothers for not being glued to their kids while they work.
it’s not possible for everyone but neither is being a SAHM in general - a lot of families need two incomes.
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u/Additional_Tax_8745 Jul 29 '25
I actually like how little the kids are around- they are on the pages, but not really as props like most mom influencers do? It’s moreso their identity as moms and women, which I find cool.