Internet influences when it comes to being parents

The Internet has caused the greatest social change since the invention of the wheel, few will be those that today do not have access to the famous network, although, there are still countries in which as we do not connect the mobile to a baobab and make antenna what We are going to have a hard time, but if we talk about the developed part of this world and a large part of the developing countries, access to the network is growing exponentially for minutes.

And it is clear that the world of motherhood is no exception, blogs, specialized forums, Skype, online shopping, etc. There is a whole world, or several, within our PC or our mobile phone to which we can access that our parents could hardly imagine when we arrived in their lives. But what are Internet influences when it comes to being parents. Are we becoming network dependent? Have we fallen into it?

A couple of decades ago when you gave birth, the father (or some volunteer) went down to the hospital cabin to call a couple of family members from each other to transmit the news to the rest (with the telephone prices of then it was not a plan to call the whole family), I remember, when my oldest son was born (six years ago) my wife gave me a list of family and friends to whom I had to send a message when the time came; When the little one was born four years ago, I relayed the birth via Twitter and WhatsApp (which incidentally caused me to forget those who did not have one thing or another). Today, we already have people who broadcast their life via streaming, tomorrow ... What will tomorrow be?

Share it all

Not only is it already transmitting the great news, but much of your life. We have social networks like Facebook or Instagram dedicated exclusively to that. Our children are born with an account on Facebook before one in the bank, of course, as the thing is, visits to the bank is not something that abounds too much.

Every time we are more accustomed to see the photos of the newborn, of the walk in the park, the christening, the last one that has been done almost instantly to have taken place. It is so much that reflects our life in social networks that I already know several cases of people who have thought that something was wrong with another because "he had not updated his page on Facebook for more than a day".

Dad, mom, I have a blog

When I started on this, I don't think we were more than a few dozen blogs whose theme was based on motherhood and of course there were four cats who talked about our fatherhood. To this day, if you are pregnant and have not started writing a blog, even if it is hidden, they almost look at you strangely.

Why a blog? Because the world of motherhood in most cases is not as we thought it would be, because they are too many emotions together, because many times we are lost in the middle of the forest, with our baby in our arms, and without knowing what address goes out of there or even without being very clear even if you can just leave.
A blog is a window to the world from which we show the world a part of us, but it is also the balcony from which to ask for help or simply know that we are not alone.

But how many parenting styles are there?

If one day you have opened the internet browser and put in the search "parenting styles or methods" you will see that to know them all you will need three lives. Terms such as respectful parenting, colecho, Estivil method, attachment, colecho will appear on thousands of websites, blogs and forums. The same happens if you look for "how to sleep my baby" and I do not even tell you if you write "baby food", where you can get information to fill three libraries and still continue without having anything clear which way to go.

Probably the Internet does not clarify the way forward, but if it dissipates many doubts or shows you other ways or the existence of new paths that you did not know until then or you can see the pros and cons of the different methods.

What do we buy for the baby?

Something that every first-time father sins is of an excess of "just in case ...", just in case this, just in case the other and so we fill the house with junk that we will use at most once or that, unfortunately, we will be cursing the day the other gave him to buy it for several months.

I am sure that what may be essential for me will be other fathers and mothers who see it as a useless thing or simply something that does not compensate to invest, but on the network we can find many articles talking about the product we are looking for or some similar, There will be comparisons, testimonials that are sure to be very valuable when deciding on one product or another. This does not mean that then the experience gives us its own verdict and that that car that everyone loves is very uncomfortable for us and so we can continue to infinity.

What we cannot deny is that every day there are more people who consult the opinions of other users on the network before deciding on one product or another.

Shopping from the couch

You could say that online commerce has not entered this country as well as expected, but every day that passes it is gaining more and more followers. After some difficult beginnings based mainly on the distrust of the consumer, it is rare the commerce that does not have its page for web commerce. Comfort has won the battle for insecurity and in many homes weekly visits to the supermarket are already a reminder of the past.

Of course the world of motherhood is not an exception in this case and that someone uploads the purchase home in those first days when everything is complicated and you need every second for more important things has been a breakthrough. Another cause of the boom of this type of transactions is that many childcare stores, especially those small stores that sell personalized products, do not usually have a physical presence, which helps them reduce costs on products that you don't usually already have. Being cheap and it is precisely the price of baby products that makes many parents look for and compare prices before buying and it is clear that there the internet has everything to gain.

And this can't be done online? Such is the custom that we have to be sure that at some time, when making a procedure, you have thought that "with how easy it would be to do it from home".

Albums on the net, photo goes!

The world of home photography had a tremendous boom when digital cameras began to be affordable for all budgets, they were simple to handle and above all you could take the pictures you wanted, erase them and repeat them again, then you just had to Download them to your computer or buy another memory card to continue taking photos. I have a friend has more photos of his son's first hour of life than his mother's whole life.

But another of the advances that has been a revolution are the hard drives online, or disks on the network and with them the albums have arrived online with which we can already share our whole lives with who we want with just one click. Not long ago, one of the things I had to do every time we went to visit my parents (they live 400km away) was to bring them a CD with the photos we had taken of our children in the period between visits, now I simply upload the photographs of one of the virtual disks on the network and I give them access to download the ones they want (although in the end I have to end up downloading them myself, but that is already a problem of how technology is used rather than a problem of the technology itself). There is no doubt that it is a great help service, especially for those families that have the large puddle separating their members.

The sides and now, which one do I fit in?

Yes, we have sides. Because in the end, the internet is nothing more than an extension of life itself and if in the park, at the exit of the school groups of mothers are formed who prefer a certain education, give a tit or bottle, sleep with the baby or leave him in his own room, read Estivill or Carlos Gonzalez, on the internet are the same but elevated to the tenth power, each with its own influencers, bloggers and facebook pages. You will find each and every one of them, now it is your decision to join one of the existing sides or do what the majority does, have their own side.

And to you, How has internet life changed you?