Photography is part of everyday family life: parents document milestones, share images with relatives, and increasingly manage those images in a digital environment. The figures below put children photography in context, combining Pew Research Center findings on parents and screens, U.S. labor data for photographers, historical Census business counts, and an international child-safety warning.
Table of contents
- How often parents share children’s images
- Why parents post—and why some do not
- Privacy, pressure, and time on screens
- Teen oversight and children’s connected devices
- The U.S. photography profession
- Portrait studios and photography businesses
- A serious online-safety boundary
How often parents share children’s images
The clearest measure of family photography’s online reach comes from Pew Research Center’s 2020 sharenting report. Among social media-using parents, 82% had posted photos, videos, or other information about their children on social media. That leaves 18% who did not share things about their children online.
Sharing differed by parent gender in the same report. Among mothers who use social media and have at least one minor child, 89% had posted about their children online. The corresponding figure for fathers was 71%. These figures describe online sharing behavior, not how often parents take photographs or how many images they keep privately.
Parents also differed by education when describing their reasons for sharing. Among college-educated sharers, 83% said that easily sharing with friends and family was a major reason they post about their children. The figure was 66% among parents with a high school diploma or less who share about their children.
Showcasing children’s accomplishments was another reported reason. It was a major reason for 44% of social media-using parents with a high school diploma or less, compared with 28% of college graduates. The report also found that 11% of sharers said other parents they know sharing about their children was a major reason for their own posting.
These numbers frame children photography as both a personal record and a form of communication. The same family image can be a keepsake, a message to relatives, or a public-facing post, depending on where it is stored and who can see it.
Why parents post—and why some do not
The leading motivation in Pew Research Center’s 2020 sharenting report was connection. Overall, 76% of parents who share about their children said being able to easily share with friends and family was a major reason they post. A smaller but still substantial 36% said showcasing their children’s accomplishments was a major reason.
The non-sharing group described a different set of priorities. Among parents who do not share things about their children online, 76% said they avoid posting because they do not want others to have access to that information. Another 71% said they do not want social media sites to collect data about their children.
Personal preference also mattered. In the same group, 55% said they were simply not interested in sharing things about their children online. Fear of judgment was reported by 29% as a major reason they avoid posting about their children.
Parents’ views of other families’ sharing were not uniform. Overall, 52% of social media-using parents said other parents share too much about their young children online, while 44% said those parents share the right amount. The difference reflects a practical tension in family photography: a picture can feel ordinary and intimate to the person taking it while being permanent, searchable, or widely redistributed once posted.
For families deciding how to handle children’s photographs, the figures support several distinct choices: sharing broadly, sharing only with selected relatives, keeping images offline, or taking photographs without posting them. The statistics do not establish which choice is best; they show that privacy and connection are both common concerns.
Privacy, pressure, and time on screens
Pew Research Center’s 2020 report also measured the social pressure surrounding parenthood online. Overall, 76% of social media-using parents said they rarely or never feel pressure to post things that make them look like a good parent. Still, 28% of mothers who use social media said they feel that pressure at least sometimes, compared with 18% of fathers.
Education was associated with different reported pressure levels. Thirty percent of college graduates who use social media said they at least sometimes feel pressure to post things that make them look like a good parent. The figures were 20% for parents with some college experience and 19% for parents with a high school education or less.
The report also asked parents about time spent with connected devices. Fifty-six percent of parents with at least one minor child said they spend too much time on their smartphone. Thirty-six percent said they spend too much time on social media, and 11% said they spend too much time playing video games.
Smartphone concern varied by gender and age. Sixty-one percent of mothers said they spend too much time on their smartphone, compared with 49% of fathers. Among parents ages 18 to 29, 65% said they spend too much time on their smartphone; the figure was 58% for parents ages 30 to 49 and 36% for parents over age 50.
The same report found that 68% of parents with at least one minor child are at least sometimes distracted by their smartphone while spending time with their children. Seventeen percent said they feel distracted often. For children’s photography, this is a useful reminder that documenting a moment and participating in it can compete for attention, even when the camera is a phone.
Teen oversight and children’s connected devices
As children grow, photography and family technology decisions increasingly overlap with monitoring, consent, and conversations about appropriate online behavior. Pew Research Center’s 2016 digital monitoring report found that 61% of parents of teens had checked which websites their teen had visited, while 60% had checked their teen’s social media profile.
Conversation was even more common in that 2016 report. Ninety-four percent of parents of teens said they had discussed what is appropriate to share online with their teen. Ninety-five percent said they had discussed what is appropriate online content for teens to view. These figures place family photography within a broader digital-literacy conversation rather than treating image sharing as an isolated decision.
More recent figures from Pew Research Center’s 2024 teens and screens report show a gap by age. Sixty-four percent of parents of 13- to 14-year-olds said they look through their teen’s smartphone, compared with 41% of parents of 15- to 17-year-olds. Across parents of teens ages 13 to 17, 50% said they ever look through their teen’s phone, while 43% of teens thought their parent ever does so.
Phone use can also become a source of disagreement. Thirty-eight percent of parents and 38% of teens said they at least sometimes argue about how much time the teen spends on the phone; 10% of both groups said those arguments happen often. Only 26% of parents said it is easy to manage how much time their teen spends on their phone, while 40% said managing that time is hard.
Income differences appeared in the same 2024 report. Forty-seven percent of higher-income parents said managing teen phone time is hard, compared with 38% of parents earning under $30,000 and 32% of parents earning $30,000 to $74,999.
Pew Research Center’s 2025 kids tech report shows how early screen exposure can begin. Eighty-five percent of parents said their child age 12 or younger watches YouTube, including 51% who said the child watches daily. Ninety percent said their child ever watches television, and 82% of parents with a child under 2 said that child watches television.
YouTube viewing varied by age: 62% of parents with a child under 2 said the child watches YouTube, compared with 84% of parents with a child age 2 to 4. Daily viewing was reported by 35% of parents with a child under 2, 51% with a child age 2 to 4, and 54% with a child age 5 to 12.
The 2025 report also measured children’s personal devices. Eleven percent of parents said their child uses a smartwatch. Eight percent said a child under 5 has their own smartphone, compared with 12% for children ages 5 to 7, 30% for ages 8 to 10, and 60% for ages 11 or 12. In principle, 68% of parents said children should be at least 12 before having their own smartphone; 26% said it is acceptable before age 12, and 6% said it is not acceptable for a child to have their own smartphone.
The U.S. photography profession
Children’s portraiture is one part of a wider occupation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Photographers Occupational Outlook Handbook reports that 151,200 photographers were employed in 2024. The median hourly wage was $20.44 in May 2024, and the median annual wage was $42,520 in May 2024.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects photographer employment to grow 2% from 2024 to 2034. It projects about 12,700 openings for photographers each year on average over that decade. An opening can reflect employment growth or the need to replace workers, so it should not be read as a forecast that all openings are newly created jobs.
| U.S. photographer measure | Figure | Measurement period |
|---|---|---|
| Employment | 151,200 | 2024 |
| Median hourly wage | $20.44 | May 2024 |
| Median annual wage | $42,520 | May 2024 |
| Projected employment growth | 2% | 2024–2034 |
| Average projected annual openings | 12,700 | Per year, 2024–2034 |
The Bureau says photographers typically need a high school diploma to enter the occupation, no work experience in a related occupation, and moderate-term on-the-job training to attain competency. Many photographers are self-employed, and portrait photographers usually work in their own studios. Those details help explain why children’s photography may be offered by independent local businesses as well as larger studios.
Portrait studios and photography businesses
Historical business counts provide an older snapshot of the industry. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2002 Economic Census counted 18,842 photographic services establishments. That total included 14,587 portrait photography studios and 4,255 commercial photography establishments.
Portrait photography studios reported $4,915,183 thousand in receipts or revenue in 2002, $1,187,437 thousand in annual payroll, and 66,148 paid employees. Commercial photography establishments reported $1,903,955 thousand in receipts or revenue, $545,942 thousand in annual payroll, and 16,753 paid employees.
The 2002 census counted 14,587 portrait photography firms, compared with 13,245 in 1997. Commercial photography firms numbered 4,255 in 2002, compared with 4,328 in 1997. These historical counts should not be used as current market totals; they describe the periods and categories reported by the 2002 Economic Census.
A serious online-safety boundary
Children’s photography also has a serious safety dimension. UNICEF, ECPAT and INTERPOL reported that at least 1.2 million children had their images manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes in the past year across 11 countries. The same statement reported that, in some countries in that study, the prevalence reached 1 in 25 children.
The finding concerns manipulated images and a specific international study, not ordinary family photography and not a universal rate for all children. It does, however, underline why families may consider audience controls, careful storage, and the long-term consequences of posting children’s images. A photograph’s emotional value does not remove the need to think about where it is kept, who can copy it, and how it might be altered.