'Mommy blogger' faces fierce backlash for Instagram post saying one of her children 'isn't as popular' as the others

A "mommy blogger" has faced a fierce backlash after she complained that one of her children was not as popular on Instagram as the others.

Katie Bower, who runs a well-read blog about her five children and has more than 52,000 followers on Instagram, posted a picture of one of her sons on his sixth birthday.

At first the writer, who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, described all the best things about the boy, writing on Instagram: "My [son] was just the best baby....cuddly and easy...a hard toddler...always on the move and slow to talk which led to lots of crying....and one of the most helpful and sweet hearted little boys."

But she went on to say: "I am gonna be perfectly honest...Instagram never liked my Munchkin and it killed me inside.

"His photos never got as many likes. Never got comments. From a statistical point of view, he wasn’t as popular with everyone out there."

She added: "Maybe part of that was the pictures just never hit the algorithm right. Part might be because he was 'the baby' for a very short amount of time... And people like babies.

"I say all that because I want to believe that it wasn’t him... that it was on me." She went on to ask followers to "like" the post for his birthday.

She also added below: "PS: I wanted to clarify that I revealed this feeling because I know one day he will see the numbers and have to learn that his value is not in online approval."

The post immediately provoked backlash, with readers upset that a child was being judged on their popularity as part of a social media "influencer" trend.

One critic said: "I do hope she think before she write. What she put out there, is out there. I hope her son never sees her Instagram post on there or on internet. It broke my heart."

Another person wrote on Twitter: "Someone needs to show her the social media episode of #BlackMirror stat. It is literally the world she imagines herself in today."

One man said he gets "really annoyed" with parent bloggers. "Parents shouldn't be able to put their kids' faces on social media without giving them right of deletion on their 18th birthday," he wrote on Twitter.

"All they're doing is trying to seek validation through people not old enough to give consent for photos."

One of Ms Bower's readers, Lindy Johnson, wrote on Twitter: "In Katie Bower's defense (I have followed her for several years), she had five children in very quick succession and I suspect she is overwhelmed with the responsibility of the five kids and maintaining a popular and informative blog on 'home/diy/marketing themselves' articles."

Ms Bower later deleted the post, writing that the "drama was out of hand" but insisted she had shared it to help people understand that social media is not the most important thing.

"Kids are smart, y'all," she said. "Kids know there's likes on photos and it's very human nature to compare. So for me, my personal growth journey is teaching my kids it doesn't matter."

Concern about the privacy of children in social media posts is not new.

In 2012, writer Liza Long provoked ire by publishing an article in which she compared her 13-year-old son with mental health difficulties to Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old who carried out the Sandy Hook massacre.

Her boy was identified by name and pictured in the piece.