I put my kittens on the internet

and other thoughts on oversharing

Sep 30, 2024

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I adopted kittens two weeks ago, completing my official descent into animal madness.

Oscar and Ivy arrived on September 14.

We adopted them from Beth Stern, Howard Stern’s wife, who runs a robust cat rescue program from her home in the Hamptons. She also has a huge Instagram following, which is where I first spotted Oscar and Ivy. Beth likes her adopters to start accounts for their cats so her followers can keep up with the cats in their new homes. When my friend Terri adopted Romeo from Beth two years ago, she started an account for him; within 24 hours, Romeo had more than 2500 followers.

We started an account for Oscar and Ivy the day we picked them up from Beth and quickly gained more than 1900 followers. It’s been sort of fun—and also I realize insane—but for now, I like having a place to share photos and videos of the kittens, especially with Sam and Ellie who are away at school and haven’t met them yet. Oh, and close to 2000 complete strangers.

Saturday morning, I made a short video of Oscar and Ivy waiting for their breakfast. They meow like crazy, and I wanted to capture their adorable little squeaks for posterity. A couple of hours later, I decided to post it as a reel on Instagram.

“I have to capture these little meows,” I wrote. “Stop filming and feed us, Mom!”

Immediately, the comments started coming in.

If you make them cry, I will block you

They must be starving it’s 10 minutes to 11:00 in the morning…. No longer following

It didn’t seem worth explaining that the kittens were fine—more than fine—and that the video had been taken several hours earlier. I also didn't feel the need to explain why the kittens were still confined to my mudroom with a baby gate, a gate they could jump over and was there primarily to keep my dogs from getting into their space.

Why are you picking (sic) them in a small bathroom? one commenter wrote.

And then there was Deb, who had a lot of feelings.

Why are they still blocked? asked Deb. And then, They are lonely so I hope they get to come out. And also: Beth needs to vet her adoptees better.

Ellie came to our defense, jumping into the comments, telling one person to “zip it” and pointing out that it’s not a bathroom, it’s a mudroom, as if it mattered. Even Ken weighed in, assuring people that the kittens were very well cared for and there was nothing to worry about.

I can’t say I was too upset by the comments. They were so silly and uninformed. People didn’t understand a lot of things: what my house was like, where the kittens were being kept and why, when and how they were fed. But it didn’t feel great and made me question the whole endeavor. An Instagram account for my kittens? What am I actually doing?

It also made me think about people who share a lot about their kids and family life online. I know I share more about my kids than some people I know—my brother, for example, shares nothing about his family online—but I try to be careful about offering too many details about them or where or how we live.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t consume this sort of content myself. I should go on record here that I follow Ballerina Farm and think her life looks, well, lovely! So sue me.

Another person I follow is Brooke Raybould who I must admit is a total hate follow and I think I am primarily writing about her here so you can hate follow her with me (if you do, let’s talk!). Brooke posts A LOT about her life and her kids and her daily routine. Brooke wakes up at five and works out every day—and not like a bullshit yoga video or walk around the neighborhood, we’re talking a real workout with weights and everything. Brooke is a big fan of making lists and making her bed. Brooke likes to take cold showers. She also homeschools her four boys who, not surprisingly, play a lot of sports. She recently announced she is pregnant again—yay! Most of the comments Brooke gets are supportive—people who want to be more like her, praising her while putting themselves down as lazy shits, which I think is part of Brooke’s brand—but she definitely gets a lot of hate as well. Why does she do this? I guess because she’s making money but there’s also something grossly performative about it. I, for one, can’t stop watching.

Another account I follow is Madeline Robson, who is a Canadian living in Malmö, Sweden. I started following her for her Sweden content (my mom was from Sweden), and I liked seeing what life was like in her pretty town, joining her for aesthetic coffee dates, that sort of thing. But since I started following her a couple of years back, Madeline’s life has changed: she got married to her Swedish boyfriend, bought an apartment and got pregnant. She gave birth to her daughter Lenore earlier this year.

At that point, Madeline’s content changed, which makes sense, but some people didn’t like that and told her so. But what was she supposed to do? I do think she might turn some people off by talking at length about how incredible Sweden’s social services are for new parents, the generous safety net, the yearlong maternity leave she’s enjoying. I get it—it might feel a little tone deaf and braggy to some.

So why am I still following her? I’m mainly gobsmacked at how diligently she has kept up her content throughout the first few months of her daughter’s life. Beautiful photographs of her lovely apartment. Dinner parties. Adorable shots of Lenore in her gorgeous outfits. Links to the gear she’s used and enjoyed. She talks about how hard everything has been but then goes to great lengths to make everything look pretty darn perfect. She’s not immune to haters either: Once when she talked about keeping up with some freelance assignments while on maternity leave (I don’t know what her work is), people got all up in her face about how she should be spending time with her kid, comments she felt the need to push back on.

I kind of want to say to her: Madeline, it’s okay. You can stop. You don’t need to provide endless content to us, strangers on the internet who don’t know you or your kid. I think I might be waiting for her to fall apart—Brooke too, actually—for her to realize that this is not a healthy way to live, offering up every detail of your intimate family life to people on the internet—and for what? Free stuff? I don’t know. I sound like an old fart. But if a video of two kittens getting breakfast can provoke a nasty response, I can only imagine what these moms are getting. Is it worth it?

Join me on Wednesday when I’ll be in conversation with Suzanne Kingsbury, founder of Gateless Writing. We’ll be talking about finding your genre as a writer, building community and what it takes to keep going. I am often asked these questions by writers so here’s a chance to talk it all through!

We’ll be chatting on Wednesday, Oct. 2 from 1-2 PM ET. If you can’t make it, no worries! Sign up and you’ll automatically get a link to the replay.