Parenting Content as Human Capital

Monetizing Autistic children, part 3 of three

“Something Good” written by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Michael Martchenko

“Autism parents” and sharenting

This is part three of a 3-part series. If you missed parts one and two, I recommended starting there!

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Children as Subjects of Human Capital

As I wrote previously, the expanding capitalist economy has involved a growing trade in information, as opposed to trade being limited to goods and services. Every time we share information online, it is commodified by these social media platforms to lure users and to be sold to advertisers, including information about our children.

If we know our personal data is actively being commodified by these companies and we willingly share private information about our children online we are, in effect, allowing our children to be exploited by industry for profit.

According to Foucault, subjectivization is a form of power which makes individuals subjects of power — that is, made subject to the control of those who hold and wield the power. One way to be subjectivized is to be made subject to someone else’s control through dependence, as in the case of vulnerable children who are dependent on their caregivers for their very survival. Children are subject to the power of their parents, who in turn, voluntarily subject them to the power of social media.

Foucault also explains that subjects are objectivized through a process he calls “dividing practices”, wherein the subject is divided from others, or in modern terms, being othered, marked different and inferior from the dominant social group. When content featuring Autistic and disabled children in emotional distress is shared online, these children are divided and othered, clearly identified as being different and less-than compared to their non-disabled and allistic (non-Autistic) peers.

Rather than having their identities affirmed and celebrated, their connection to others is severed. They are “tied to [their] own identity in a constraining way”, in a way which demeans and devalues them, their public selves shaped by their most difficult moments. Despite much of this content being shared with good intent, or out of sheer desperation, its presence online sends the message these children’s lives — and by extension, their families’ lives — are less worthwhile than others, their very existence a drain on their families and communities.