A viral video forced NFL player Isaac Rochell and his influencer wife, Allison Kuch, to confront a question that millions of parents are wrestling with right now: how much of their children’s lives should actually be visible to the world?
The couple, who share two daughters named Scottie and Pepper, told People magazine the experience was a “Wake Up Call” that reshaped how they approach posting content featuring their kids.
After Kuch and Rochell posted a video capturing the moment they found out about a new pregnancy that went viral, racking up over 60 million views, Rochell made a choice. “I told my wife that moment, I said, we will never show our kids on social media, cause I don’t care about the views,” he said, adding that he couldn’t “care less” if showing them got him more views.
Rochell said that when his daughter is older, they can discuss her involvement in social media, but until then, “Nobody’s entitled to share any moments that I have with my child,” Rochell said.
Why This Moment Matters Beyond One Celebrity Couple
Rochell and Kuch are far from alone in this reckoning. Research from the Children’s Commissioner revealed that children accumulate an average of 1,300 photos and videos posted about them before they even reach the age of 13 — meaning many children already carry a substantial digital footprint before they ever create their own accounts. That footprint can shape how others perceive them, expose them to bullying, and even affect future opportunities, all before they are old enough to weigh in on any of it.
Beyond reputation, there is a cybersecurity dimension to sharing children’s images that rarely gets discussed at the moment a parent reaches for the post button. Birthday celebration photos, snapshots from the first day of school, pictures with the family dog, each of these can quietly answer the very security questions a child will one day need to protect their own accounts.
As the Family Online Safety Institute points out, common password recovery questions like “What was the name of your first pet?” or “Where did you attend school?” can be answered by anyone who has scrolled through a parent’s social media feed. When combined with a child’s date of birth visible in a birthday post, the Family Online Safety Institute warns that parents may have inadvertently given away all the personal information they have been diligently teaching children not to share since they were old enough to handle a device.
One of the thorniest issues in the “sharenting” conversation is consent. Younger children simply cannot give informed consent to having their images broadcast to hundreds or thousands of strangers. Internet Matters, a digital safety organization, notes in its sharenting guidance that, growing up in the social media age, children begin developing an online reputation from the time they are born.
Experts recommend asking children for permission to photograph and post them as early as they are able to understand the question, and genuinely respecting the answer.
What Parents Can Actually Do Right Now
Experts and digital safety advocates offer several concrete steps families can take immediately. Reviewing your privacy settings so that only people you genuinely know can see your posts is a strong starting point. Before sharing any image, doing a quick scan for details that reveal your child’s school name, street address, or daily routine can prevent unintended disclosures.
If other children appear in a photo, getting permission from their parents before posting is both courteous and protective. Some families may have safety circumstances, such as fleeing domestic violence, that make any public photo dangerous.
The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada emphasizes that children are often unaware of how their online activities can compromise their own privacy, which means parents carry an outsized responsibility to model thoughtful behavior. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada notes in its guidance for parents and caregivers that many kids do not fully understand the impact that some online activities may have on their privacy. That modeling starts with the choices adults make about their own children’s images.
Examining Why We Post in the First Place
Digital safety advocates also encourage parents to honestly examine their own motivations. Sharing a child’s milestone with grandparents who live across the country is meaningfully different from posting for likes and public validation.
The Family Online Safety Institute’s guide on responsible photo sharing suggests asking yourself whether the post serves your child’s interests or primarily your own need for affirmation, and whether anyone who should not see the content might still encounter it. If the answer to that second question gives you pause, the guidance is simple: when in doubt, do not share.
What makes the Rochell and Kuch story significant is not that two influencers changed their posting habits; it is that their platform gives this conversation a visibility it rarely gets. Most parents who share their children’s images online are doing so with genuine love and good intentions. But good intentions do not erase digital footprints.
As more families grapple with where to draw the line, moments like this one — a viral video, a pause, a reconsideration, may be exactly the kind of wake-up call the broader culture needs.
