Technology and parenting

The moment I found out I was pregnant, I knew how I was going to break the news to my parents. I bought a unisex onesie and called my parents through my web cam. Since the news coincided with my anniversary, I told them I wanted to show them what my husband had gotten me as a present, and then pulled out the onesie. They were stunned! And even though they were thousands of miles away, I was able to enjoy their reactions as if they were right in front of me. Technology.

Lately I have been wondering if all this technology we have actually makes parenting easier. Just a few years ago women did not have the possibility of knowing the gender of their baby until they were actually born. If you had relatives living far away, you had to write a letter to let them know you were pregnant or make a quick, expensive long-distance phone call.

We 21^st century mothers have a lot of goodies that make motherhood even more thrilling. Does it make our lives easier? I think in many ways it does. For those of us who chose to find out what we were having, it made preparing the nursery and buying clothes easier. Our digital cameras and computers, make capturing memories easier; we could take daily videos of how our kids grow! I remember when I was little, it sometimes took us years to get films developed! Now we can even send photos and videos through our phones! And Facebook has allowed us to share our wonderful journey with friends and relatives in amazing ways. How many of us gave birth with our laptops by our beds, having someone update our status every minute of labor?:

    “Relaxing after finally getting the epidural! I should have done this before!”  6 hours ago.

    “Baby’s coming any minute!”  20 minutes ago.

    “She’s here! Weight: xx, length: xx! So exciting.” 1 second ago.  

People expected a photo immediately, and we were excited to post it and read the 59 comments it had a minute later. Is this wacky or what? In fact, if we wanted to, we could transmit our labor experience live over-the-internet! And motherhood must certainly be a little easier with online banking. If we still had to physically go pay our bills, what time would there be left for anything else? Can you imagine how crazy those lines full of moms with kids would be? And who has time to go buy diapers? You can get them and anything else online. Can you imagine giving birth back in the 18^th century? And then going through all those changes without having a babycenter.com to consult in case of a question? What about WebMD? Remember when you had to look up info in an encyclopedia?

Yes, I am convinced, motherhood is easier these days (answer the poll on the right to share your opinion). However, I think raising a child well, is a universal, never-changing challenge. Technology helps us (hopefully) make more of the time we are given, but all over the world mothers and fathers are learning each day how to love their kids better, how to discipline them, and how to best teach them to live in this world. That was the case 200 years ago and still is today. We are fortunate to be living in times where experiences seem to be enhanced with our ever-increasing amount of gadgets. My goal is to make these tools work for me as it relates to my mission in raising my kids, without letting them pull me away from the joy that can come from listening to my children laughing as they enjoy an afternoon swinging on a tire dangling from a tree in our backyard…

…and then tweet about it!