Carlin Bates Under Fire For Continuing To Exploit Kids

Former star of Bringing Up Bates, Carlin Bates Stewart, and her husband Evan, are being ridiculed again for their continued exploitation of their children. The couple share two children: Layla, 3, and Zade, 1. Being that the majority of Carlin’s Instagram page is full of her children, are these claims unreasonable?

Carlin’s Income

Content creation has quickly become one of the most desired income options in recent years. In a time when a “content creator” wasn’t really a thing, Carlin and her enormous family were very much in that field. Their show documented many aspects of their lives. From schooling to grocery shopping and weddings and births, it was all filmed for national TV. In contrast, social media allows for the same type of documentation in smaller doses.

With over 500,000 followers on Instagram alone, Carlin Bates has a pretty good opportunity to use the platform as income. She has several paid partnerships that she posts ads for and stands to make a decent amount off of views alone on her personal content.  Aside from Instagram, Carlin and Evan also have a YouTube channel that is monetized. Their YouTube has a whopping 186,000 followers, with over 30,000,000 views. They share all about their family’s day-to-day and special vacations on their vlogs.

Bates is also co-owner of Bates Sisters Boutique. She and sister-in-law Whitney Perkins Bates, wife of Zach Bates, started the business in 2019. Initially, Erin Bates Paine was also a part of the business but stepped away due to a change of focus on her immediate family.

Does Evan Work?

While it’s quite obvious that Carlin’s online presence brings in a good bit of income, many are still questioning what Evan contributes. At the time of their marriage, Evan was an electrician’s apprentice in Nashville. However, due to Carlin’s health and Evan running out of his FMLA time, he was let go. Since that time, he has been staying home to help care for Carlin since she cannot be alone and helping with the social media content.

Critics Outraged

In a recent Reddit thread, a follower made note of a recent Instagram reel posted by Carlin. In the video, Layla paints Carlin’s nails and provides the most adorable commentary. The poster mentions that it sounds as if Layla has a microphone, but remembered seeing where someone confirmed that the Stewarts have a whole filming setup. They record their day-to-day with a professional camera, a boom mic, and even special lighting. She also made the comment, “How wild is it to think these children are living in a perpetual Truman Show.”

The Stewarts have been the subject of a lot of controversy surrounding their accused exploitation. The Reddit thread contained a lot of discussion on what their motives may be regarding the CONSTANT filming and posting of their kids. Some think it may be more innocent and that the parents are hoping to get Layla, their oldest, on Disney or signed with a talent scout. There are others, many others, that feel the family is just using their kids to pay for their lifestyle.

Keeping Up With The Joneses

Carlin and Evan recently purchased a brand-new Tesla Model X Plaid. There is an entire fan base that thinks this decision was fueled solely by Evan’s jealousy of brother-in-law Travis Clark. Given the information available on their income, several are asking the question of how or if they are even able to afford these things.

On the family’s YouTube, they regularly share family vacations all over the place. Skeptics feel that the choices they’re making are irresponsible in more ways than one. To rely on your children to provide quality content as one of your main sources of income and to post so much of your children at all.

 

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Empathetically, there are still those who feel that Carlin truly doesn’t understand that what she is doing is wrong, as she herself grew up with a good bit of her life on camera. Do you agree with that sentiment? How do you feel about the majority of her social media featuring her children? Do you think they have the children’s best interests in mind? Are they just looking for an easy way of life?