Mom Shamed For Viral Airport Photo Speaks Out

Molly Lensing is a part-time pediatric nurse who lives in Illinois and has three kids. She's also the woman at the center of this controversial photo, showing Lensing seemingly ignoring her daughter, who's on a blanket on an airport floor. It first went viral last year and put Lensing in the internet's crosshairs:

Albert Einstein a dit : "Je crains le jour où la technologie prendra le pas sur notre humanité. .. Le monde sera alors peuplé par une génération d'idiots "

Posted by Christian Naniot on Monday, August 28, 2017

The caption on this Facebook post, which has been shared almost 66,000 times, reads, "Albert Einstein said, 'I fear the day that technology will take on our humanity. .. the world will be populated by a generation of idiots'." But now Lensing's shared her side of the story with Today, and cautioned against kneejerk public shaming on the internet.

Lensing was traveling home with her 2-year-old daughter Anastasia in a Colorado airport when she was caught up in a Delta computer shut-down. In the midst of all the kerfuffle, "Anastasia had been held or in her carrier for many hours. My arms were tired. She needed to stretch. And I had to communicate with all the family members wondering where the heck we were." So she placed Anastasia down for a moment while she attempted to get their travel plans back on track.

Months after the flight, she started seeing images of her "parenting fail" circulate on the web, and strangers began to not just identify her by name but also send her messages on her private social media.

While this would terrify most people, Lensing was especially worried because of her line of work: "I absolutely feel as though my privacy was violated. I had recently started working on a labor floor, and I was terrified of my co-workers or boss seeing the photo and comments and believing that I should no longer work with infants. Thankfully, this never happened."

Though Lensing, unfortunately, can't do much to prevent a once-viral photo from going viral again, she's emerged from her brush with internet shaming with a lesson that most people can relate to: "I ignore the photos and the comments and lean on those close to me who know the real me. I am powerless compared to the internet, and I know that I am the best momma to my girls and I know that I cherish them and am raising them the best I can."