The age of outsourcing My Child columnist Kylie Kaden asks whether, as mums bringing up children today, with all of the outsourcing we utilise, do we really have a better deal than that of our mothers or grandmothers?
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ou modern mothers don’t know how good you have it, with your microwaves and disposable nappies…’ We have all heard the words, but is there any truth in the proposition that we have the better deal? Sure, our mothers didn’t have the technologies we enjoy (in some cases, tolerate) but is parenting easier in modern times? Let’s do a comparison: Huggies disposables to scrubbing cloths, automatic washers to twintubs, iPads to I Spy; the modern world sounds like a breeze, right? Yet with the technology and all of the freedom of contemporary times come side effects: materialism, cyberbullying, screentime rationing; not to mention needing a matrix to work out which kid goes where each day. These may be First World “problems”, but there is far more pressure on parents now; a saturation in printed and online mediums of parenting issues, the childcare debate, articles
designed to pitch mothers up against each other for their choices… In some ways the explosion of information available to modern parents is valuable. We have the benefits of research, options, choice, and no excuse to be stuck in the rigid parenting practices of past eras. Yet all that choice can raise all sorts of anxieties and second-guessing when it comes to deciding how to bring up our children. Freedom is not always liberating. Maybe it’s just me, but when did parenting get so complicated? Along with technology and public scrutiny comes a whole new level of expectation – things like party planners for kid’s birthdays, camping out for kindy places, and having to enrol your child in schools before they’re even born. Crazy times. We all try to do the best by our children. How that looks in real terms differs from family to family. One easy trap to fall into is to start >
july 2014 | mychild
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