In contemporary societies, parenting is increasingly mediated by digital technologies. From WhatsApp school groups to Instagram accounts offering advice and products, digital platforms have become central to how care is organized, emotions are expressed, and norms are negotiated. But what happens when these platforms, designed to connect, also become spaces of surveillance, comparison, and affective overload?

Drawing on two qualitative studies conducted in Chile by the author and her colleagues (see publications below)—one on WhatsApp groups among school parents and another on maternal Instagram accounts—this blog post explores how digital technologies shape the affective and normative dimensions of parenting. These platforms are not neutral tools; they are affective infrastructures that govern how we feel, act, and relate as parents.

WhatsApp Groups and the Emotional Governance of School Life

In Chilean schools, WhatsApp groups have become a ubiquitous form of communication between parents, and often between parents and teachers. While these groups offer practical benefits—reminders, updates, coordination—they also create a dense affective atmosphere. Messages are not just informational; they are emotionally charged. A forgotten lunch, a child’s misbehavior, or a late reply can trigger anxiety, guilt, or judgment.

Our research shows that these groups generate normative expectations about what it means to be a “good parent.” Parents are labeled as “alarmist” or “negligent” depending on their WhatsApp behavior; students are seen as “responsible” or “problematic” depending on the stories shared in the WhatsApp parents’ group; and teachers are expected to be constantly available, since WhatsApp is readily accessible on their phones. These labels are affectively curated—through emojis, silences, and rapid-fire responses—and they shape how people perform their roles in the school community.

Importantly, surveillance is not only vertical (from school to family) but also horizontal. Parents monitor each other’s responses, routines, and even parenting styles. This peer surveillance is often framed as care or solidarity, but it also creates pressure to conform, respond, and be present.

Instagram and the Marketization of Momfluencers

On Instagram, a different but related dynamic unfolds. In a study of 56 Chilean accounts run by micro-influencers, we found that motherhood is increasingly framed through consumption. Posts offer advice, workshops, and products—often grounded in personal experience and affective storytelling.

These accounts mobilize emotions such as pride, guilt, and longing. They promise solutions to everyday struggles (“How to get your child to sleep”) while also offering a sense of belonging (“You’re not alone”). The affective appeal is powerful—and profitable.

What is being sold is not just a product, but a way of being a mother. A good mother is informed, reflexive, emotionally available, and constantly improving. She learns from her child, heals her own childhood wounds, and turns every challenge into a growth opportunity. This ideal is aspirational—and exhausting.

As Stewart (2007) and Ahmed (2015) argue, affects circulate in public spaces, shaping desires and outlining “possible lives.” On Instagram, these possible lives are curated through images, sound, emojis, hashtags, and every other affordance of the app. They are also commodified. The promise of emotional support is often tied to a product, a workshop, or a brand.

Normativity, Affect, and the Digital Public Sphere

Across both platforms, we see how affect and normativity are deeply intertwined. Digital spaces do not simply reflect parenting practices; they shape them as well. They produce normative ideals—of the good mother, the responsible parent, the successful child—and circulate them through affective economies.

These ideals are not imposed from above. They emerge through everyday interactions, through what is said and unsaid, through likes, shares, and silences. They are sustained by algorithms, but also by peer dynamics and surveillance. In Instagram mothers‘ communities, as Winch (2015) notes, “the many women watching the many women” (p. 228). In the same sense, Butler (2017) reminds us that public spaces—digital or not—are performative arenas where norms are enacted and contested.

In both WhatsApp and Instagram, the figure of the mother is central. Fathers are largely absent from these conversations. The burden of care, communication, and affective labour falls disproportionately on women. This aligns with the concept of “intensive mothering” (Hays, 1996), where mothers are expected to be ever-present, ever-attentive, and ever-improving.

Digital Surveillance and the Affective Costs of Connection

While digital platforms offer new forms of connection and support, they also blur boundaries—between school and home, public and private, care and control. They create spaces where emotions are not only expressed but governed. Affective responses become indicators of moral worth: the fast responder, the informed mother, the emotionally available parent.

This governance has costs. Parents report feeling overwhelmed, judged, and exhausted. Teachers feel surveilled and overextended. Children, though often absent from these platforms, are discussed, labelled, and compared. Their identities are shaped in absentia, through the digital gaze of adults.

Moreover, these platforms reproduce inequalities. On Instagram, the ideal of motherhood is often tied to middle-class aesthetics and consumption. Mothers with fewer resources may feel excluded or inadequate. As Pugh (2004) and Clarke (2013) argue, the commodification of care creates new forms of pressure and exclusion.

Rethinking Digital Parenting Through an Affective Lens

What kind of digital parenting futures are we building? How can we design platforms and practices that support rather than surveil, that connect without exhausting?

Affective societies are not just those where emotions matter—they are societies where emotions are structured, circulated, and governed. In the case of digital parenting, this means recognizing how platforms shape not only what we do, but how we feel about what we do.

It also means asking difficult questions: Who gets to be seen as a good parent? Who is excluded from these digital communities? What kinds of care are valued—and which are commodified?As we continue to study the intersections of affect, technology, and social life, we must remain attentive to the everyday spaces—like WhatsApp chats and Instagram feeds—where norms are made, feelings are shaped, and futures are imagined.

To delve deeper into the topics of this post, go to:

Moyano Dávila, C., Rojas-Navarro, S., & Domenech, R. (2023). Silenced Conflict: Surveillance and Normalization Using WhatsApp Groups at School. Family Relations, 72(2), 547–564. https://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12816

Moyano Dávila, C., & Tabilo, I. (2024). Performing Parenthood Through Digital Communication Technologies at School: The Case of WhatsApp Parents’ Groups in Chile. Family, Relationships and Society, 13(2), 253–270. https://doi.org/10.1332/20467435Y2024D000000022

Moyano Dávila, C., Tabilo, I., Vera-Muñoz, I., & Alarcón Arcos, S. (2023). Normative Becoming in the Digital Sphere: WhatsApp Parents’ Groups in Chilean Education. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 31(138). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.31.7907

Tabilo, I., Moyano Dávila, C., & Gallegos, F. (2023). #Maternity: Emergence of Maternal Digital Markets in Chilean Instagram Accounts. Cuadernos.info, 55, 46–70. https://doi.org/10.7764/cdi.55.53227

References

Ahmed, S. (2015). The Cultural Politics of Emotion. UNAM.
Butler, J. (2017). Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. Paidós.
Clarke, A. J. (2013). Designing mothers and the market: Social class and material culture. In S. O’Donohoe, M. Hogg, P. Maclaran, L. Martens, & L. Stevens (Eds.), Motherhoods, Markets and Consumption: The Making of Mothers in Contemporary Western Cultures (pp. 43–55). Routledge.
Hays, S. (1996). The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood. Yale University Press.
Pugh, A. J. (2004). Windfall child rearing: Low-income care and consumption. Journal of Consumer Culture, 4(2), 229–249.
Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary Affects. Duke University Press.
Winch, A. (2015). Brand intimacy, female friendship and digital surveillance networks. New Formations, 84/85, 228–245. https://doi.org/10.3898/NewF:84/85.11.2015

Edited by Meike Haken and Annabella Backes