'I broke into my 17yo daughter's phone. I was horrified by the secrets she'd been keeping.'

Until recently, I would have described my daughter Molly* as the kind of teenager people dream of raising.

She loved her netball team, did well at school, and was fiercely loyal to her friends. She wasn't perfect — none of us are — but she had always known who she was.

Even as a little girl, she stood up for kids being picked on in the playground and called out the boys who made sexist jokes. Confidence was her currency. She had it in spades.

At 17, she had more self-assurance than I've ever managed to summon. Comfortable in her body, confident around boys, clear about her boundaries. She knew what she liked and what she didn't, and she never hesitated to tell you.

Watch: The OnlyFans boom explained. Post continues below.

As her single mum, I often stood in awe of her. She was everything I had wished I could be at her age.

And then everything I thought I knew flipped on its head.

It started with a gut feeling. I knew Molly had a part-time job at a café, but her spending didn't match her payslips. She was buying clothes and gadgets that should have been out of her price range.

Nothing huge, just a few things that pricked my senses. I still had her banking passwords from when she was younger, and although her main account looked fairly normal, the maths just wasn't mathsing.

So, I did something I'm not proud of. I cracked the code on her phone.

I don't say that lightly. It felt like a betrayal, but my anxiety had reached a point where I needed answers more than I needed to respect boundaries. That's when I found the app for a second bank account — one I had no access to.

When I confronted her, Molly was cagey at first. Said it was a mistake, something a friend helped her set up. But when I kept pushing — frantic, panicked, not even knowing what I was asking.

She changed. She held her chin high, looked me in the eye, and told me. "OnlyFans".

The room went silent. And then everything inside me shattered.

I don't remember exactly what I said in those first few minutes. I remember shaking. I remember crying. I remember a wave of nausea that felt like grief. It wasn't about the content she was sharing — though yes, that terrified me. It was the sudden realisation that the version of my daughter I had in my head… wasn't real anymore.

I felt like I didn't know her.

Here's the wild part: I hadn't seen any suggestive content on her phone. Nothing risqué. No photos, no videos, nothing. Which made the shock even more disorienting. She'd been smart about it. Sneaky, even. She was shooting on her phone, then sending the content to a secret laptop I didn't even know she had.

From there, she'd edit the images and save everything to The Cloud, deleting the originals off her phone. That's how deep the sneakiness went.

Eventually she showed me what she was sharing, defending herself by saying "not that many" people had seen her. She wasn't a high roller on there, but as a mum, knowing that anyone had seen her exposed like that sent me into a spin.

The weeks that followed were some of the darkest of my life. I couldn't sleep. Couldn't eat. I Googled obsessively — 'Is OnlyFans legal for under-18s?' (It's not. You must be 18 to open an account!) I reported the page anonymously.

I begged her to take it down. She told me she wasn't doing anything she wasn't okay with. She told me to trust her.

But how could I trust her? The daughter I thought I knew had a secret life, and I had no idea where it started or ended.

A few weeks post-confession, another girl at school was caught with an account. That's when the school cracked down, sending out a stern letter to all parents about inappropriate online activity. Molly's heart was in her throat. Mine was too. No one had seen hers. No one had reported it. But it was only a matter of time.

She shut it down voluntarily. Said she'd already been planning to stop, that she'd done what she wanted to do with it. That she was bored of it. I still don't know if that was true, or if she was trying to protect me. Either way, it ended. Quietly.

But the story didn't end for me.

I spiralled: fear, shame, heartbreak. I worried about what people would think. What if a parent found out? What if it spread? What if this stayed with her? I worried about her safety, her future. And most of all I questioned everything. Had I failed her? Was I a bad mother? Why didn't I see this coming?

Molly, though? She didn't flinch. She was unapologetic.

"I'm not ashamed," she said. "I liked how it made me feel." She said she felt in control. Empowered. Respected.

That broke me open in a whole new way.

One of the best conversations we had - the one that really shifted things — was about the sneakiness of it all. The second bank account. The deleted photos. The secret laptop I hadn't known existed. She admitted she knew it wasn't okay.

"If I didn't think you'd freak out," she said, "I would've told you."

She was right. I would have freaked out. I did. But that honesty cracked something open between us. That's when I realised the rage I'd been holding wasn't about OnlyFans. It was about not being included in her world.

I still have days when the grief creeps in. I miss the simpler version of parenting - netball, group chats, birthday sleepovers. But I also see now that knowing your child fully means allowing them to evolve into someone you didn't script.

I want Molly to be safe. But more than that, I want her to keep talking to me. I want her to feel like she doesn't have to hide, because if she hides - I'm out of the loop. And if I'm out of the loop, I can't help her, can't support her, can't protect her.

The hard truth is this: if we demonise our teens for their choices, they'll only learn to be better at hiding them.

These days, Molly shares more with me than I ever imagined possible. She teaches me about body neutrality, about self-acceptance, about the difference between sexualisation and agency. I don't always understand it. But I'm listening. And I'm learning.

And honestly? I'm proud of her.

Not for having an OnlyFans.

But for being someone who refuses to be anyone but herself. It's not the path I would've chosen for her. But then again, it's not my path. It's hers. I'm just lucky to be walking beside her.

*Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

The author of this article is known to Mamamia but has chosen to remain anonymous for privacy reasons.

Feature Image: Getty.