12 Feb The Trouble With eParenting

Our generation of parents is trailblazing what it means to raise kids that have access to the internet. That includes everything from social media and online pornography, to violence and trolls.

I am a huge believer of referring to the wisdom of the ages.

I parent instinctively, but as a rule, I take my parenting advice from my parents and their generation. And as a rule, they got it from their parents.

There weren’t any labelled parenting styles when I was a kid. My parents had us in their beds until we wandered off and found our own. But they didn’t call it ‘co-sleeping’. Food was given to us to handle and chew on when we were about six-months-old. But they never called it ‘baby-led weaning’.

We ran around the streets until dinner time every weekend – but they never called themselves ‘free range parents’.

Even though the labels weren’t there, the general concepts were the same. My mum can pipe in on baby-led weaning because she introduced food to three humans. My dad can give me his opinion on babies in the bed because he did years of research on the topic. My parents have life experiences to refer to in almost every parenting question that arises.

Except one. eParenting.

Our generation of parents is trailblazing what it means to raise kids that have access to the internet; to social media, to online pornography, to violence and trolls.

On the plus side, they also have access to the entire collective wisdom of the human race and that’s outrageously cool. My daughter loves watching videos of animals giving birth – it’s so gross at times, but also awesome. I love that she can foster her own interests online.

But it’s hard. No one knows exactly how to do it. I work in digital media and I still don’t feel like I can easily navigate the world of eParenting.

But we are trying hard to help you guys in this area – so here are a collection of articles all about eParenting. Enjoy.

Words by Barbara O’Reilly