If you’re on the parenting side of TikTok, you see a wide range of content styles.
Some parents use the app to talk about parenting but don’t show their kids. Others show their kids in limited or controlled contexts, sometimes even with scripts.
Others, though, show a side of their kids’ lives that results in mass reporting to authorities.
Seventeen Diapers
The controversy began when a mom on TikTok did a video of walking through her house at the end of the day to collect all the dirty diapers that had accumulated.
The debate raged: was this content creator, who went by the name Nurse Hannah and would be identified as Hannah Hiatt, demonstrating the effects of neglectful parenting or severe depression?
She counted up 17 used diapers, and the implication was that they were all from that day. Some other moms empathized, acknowledging that they’re often so exhausted or depressed or overwhelmed that just carrying a diaper to the trash can seems like an impossible feat, and others were ready to ‘rescue’ her baby.
Then, other videos began to raise questions as well.
Meanwhile, Hiatt responded by adding more videos of diaper counting and a link of her defense to her Linktree page, including the usual influencer product codes and endorsements and even a storefront.
She even implemented the ’17 diapers’ controversy in product endorsements, such as when she was sent a free Diaper Genie, and staged events to gain followers under the title “17 diapers giveaway.”
Discussing The Signs Of Abuse & Reporting
Within the platform, viewers started to reach out for expert advice.
They tagged child therapists, doctors, and others, many of whom might have a legal duty to report if there was clear and visible abuse shown in the videos.
By this time, people were also starting to express concern about the baby’s injuries and bandages. At least one expert, therapist Joshua Terhune, who goes by the name Mr. Joshua on the app, responded by releasing a video that would help discern the difference between injuries likely caused by abuse and those likely caused by childhood accidents, not just for Hiatt’s child but for anyone concerned about any child.
In fact, Terhune released multiple follow-up videos, including one in which he indicated he may have been one of the many to make a report. He said he would “neither confirm nor deny” that he made a report, in order to protect others who had done so.
Hiatt Can Delete, But Online, Video Is Forever
While Nurse Hannah’s TikTok account has been renamed and some videos have been removed, others have reuploaded some of her videos, sometimes adding commentary or editing to create montages to show specific behaviors. There’s a montage being shared that seems to show the mom failing to support the head of a newborn, and many clips that imply her child is not being fed.
One reposted video shows the family eating in a restaurant and focuses on the child’s face as the two adults eat while he just watches. One clip shows the child’s father flicking his fingers for reaching for a french fry. In another, Nurse Hannah discusses not wanting to spend the money to buy her child a winter coat.
Other TikTokers are dissecting how they witness the child flinching when a parent moves toward him, the multiple times they’ve seen the child appear denied food, and more.
These are the moments in the family’s life that they chose to share publicly.
CPS Reportedly Opens An Investigation
While CPS isn’t exactly in the habit of publicly announcing who they’re investigating, what the allegations are, and who reported it, there may be signs.
In this case, when rumors began circulating that the parents were under investigation for possible child neglect and abuse, police were willing to confirm. People Magazine reported:
“The Ogden, Utah, Police Department confirms to PEOPLE that “there is an open, active investigation into” TikTok creator Hannah Hiatt…”There is a detective assigned to the case,” a spokesperson for the department tells PEOPLE.”
Comparisons To Ruby Franke
Hiatt was apparently very upset that commenters and other content creators compared her to former mommy vlogger Ruby Franke. She released a video saying that she found this ridiculous and that there was no legitimate comparison.
Franke was arrested in August 2023, more than three years after the first time she was investigated over allegations arising from her content.
The first concern surfaced when her teenager said he’d been made to sleep on a beanbag as punishment. Later, viewers examining Franke’s videos raised concerns that the six children were being denied food (one example was when the 6-year-old forgot her school lunch and Franke said she wouldn’t take it to her and hoped nobody offered her food). In other situations, she threatened her children’s beloved possessions.
She also told her children they were “evil” or “possessed” and punished them through physical labor in unbearable conditions (barefoot, sunburned “with blisters and sloughing skin”), used rope to bind wrists, among other crimes, according to Biography.
Influencer Parents & Child Abuse Allegations
Nor was Ruby Franke the first parent to face consequences after being accused of using child maltreatment as content.
YouTuber Mike Martin, who went by the name DaddyOfFive had two of his children temporarily removed from his and his wife’s custody in 2017, according to NBC, after viewers were horrified by the increasingly harsh “pranks” the parents played on their kids.
It culminated in a video of an invisible ink “prank” in which one child was called to his room to be scolded for getting ink on his carpet. Only after much berating of the child for making a massive mess and sobbing denials from the boy did the parents reveal that it was a prank and that they had poured the ink — disappearing ink — there themselves.
However, this brought attention to other videos that showed physical violence and signs of emotional trauma, resulting in the temporary removal of the children.
What’s Next For Hannah & Family?
There are many ways the investigation could go.
Hiatt’s Instagram has been set to private, and there have been no new uploads to TikTok or YouTube in over a week. Some videos also seem to have been removed, and as previously mentioned, she’s changed her TikTok handle and seems to have turned off commenting.
It’s unlikely that much about the investigation will be released publicly by authorities unless they uncover information that leads to criminal charges.
If the investigation does uncover verifiable mistreatment or neglect of the kids, Hannah and her husband, Braxton Hiatt, could be required to agree to a parenting plan or take parenting classes. They might be connected to resources to help if authorities determine that post-partum depression or other circumstances are contributing to the situation.
More severe consequences, like criminal charges or the removal of the children, have happened to influencer parents before, as demonstrated in the Ruby Franke and Mike Martin cases. Still, there is no current indication that the Hiatt case is headed in that direction.
On the other hand, if the investigation doesn’t substantiate any allegations of abuse, Hiatt and her kids could return to social media, albeit likely under more intense scrutiny from their audience than ever.