A mom-influencer faces backlash for posting about accidentally running her toddler over the same day it happened.
Parenting and family influencers are known for posting their children and every second of their life online, which alone has sparked a lot of controversy. This time, a mom influencer has taken it to a new level posting about herself accidentally running over her toddler the same day it happened with the child still in hospital. It has sparked immense backlash.
"The Worst Day Of Our Lives"
Kelly Hopton-Jones is a mom of two who posts about her life, parenting struggles and her children on her Instagram account hillside_farmhouse. She also sells parenting and "clean living" guides.
On April 16, the mother reportedly accidentally hit her 23-month-old son with her car. The toddler was rushed to hospital.
Not the accident is what enraged viewers though, but the fact that she made an Instagram post the same day of the incident describing the situation to her viewers and featuring pictures of the injured toddler in a hospital bed.
The post details Hopton-Jones intending to leave with her 4-year-old daughter to pick up donuts and go to the girl's dance performance. The husband and toddler Henry stayed home. As she was pulling out the driveway, she claims, the small child darted out of the garage and “in a matter of seconds” was run over by her car.
Today has been the worst day of our lives. Life can change in the literal blink of an eye. A true nightmare for a parent happened to us today.
The influencer writes on a picture of her holding the little hand of her son with a hospital band on it.
She also said that doctors confirmed X-rays of Henry’s chest, legs, and neck came back normal, but he has a fracture in his pelvis that will take time to heal.
We could drive ourselves crazy with the what ifs, and honestly, we are a little bit. But accidents happen. And I keep coming back to what I would tell my own kids one day if this happened to them. Accidents happen, and the only mistakes are the ones we don’t learn from. We’re on the lucky side of a very tragic accident.
the caption reads.
The post quickly went viral and many questioned her decision to post about the incident so quickly or at all. She has since deleted the comments and disabled the comment function on this specific post.
According to Dexerto, viewers wrote sentiments like: “Yeah running your own kid over then making a post on the same day is not very ‘I’m traumatized’. Social media has ruined us,” or “I’m sorry this happened. Creating content from it, the same day it happened… is weird.”
Some reportedly defended Hopton-Jones as everyone copes with trauma differently but most commenters seem to be in agreement that the post was inappropriate and the moment should have remained private at least for a few days.
Some comments have spilled over to her previous posts questioning her on why the other one is still up but comments are off and calling for an investigation by CPS.
Comments turn sarcastic reading: "Had the worst day of your life but anything for the gram eh? Maybe put the phone down", "My son is in the ER, quick let's make a post on social media for attention" and "Oh no I ran my own child over, quick get the camera so we can get likes for sympathy".
But well, it seems to have kind of worked. While all the other posts on the 65k follower strong Instagram page have around 50 to 200 likes, the post about her son has over 38k. So it did indeed give her attention. She herself has remained quiet and has not adressed the topic yet.
