Don’t Let the Internet Tell You How to Parent

(Photo: Lightstock)

When my first child was born fifteen years ago, the Internet existed but only on my computer, as smartphones were only beginning to gain popularity. Facebook was around, but not many other social media sites, and they were not yet filled with paid influencers. If I googled a parenting question, most of the information came from mommy bloggers, forums or magazine websites.

Very quickly, parenting sites combined information with commerce and began to undermine a mother’s intuition in deciding what’s best for her children in favor of “expert” advice or a product deemed essential for moms. Now the Internet is flooded with expert opinions and false promises, making it hard to decipher what is actually helpful.

Nowadays, if you google a question, you will get an AI summary, but you don’t even know if a person or a bot — or anyone with real parenting experience — wrote the aggregate data the AI summary is using. Sometimes it is helpful, but more often than not, it can be just plain wrong. Children are not algorithms where you just have to plug in the right formula to get the right outcome.

A Call to Discernment

We need to be able to use our own intelligence and the wisdom God gave us to discern the parenting advice we are getting on the Internet. You might be told that babies need to be fed every three hours, that potty training should be done in three days or that there's a three-step foolproof way to stop meltdowns. And there might be some truth in all of that, but it’s not all truth. A parent must decide what the next step is, and God has given us his Spirit to help us discern.

Analysis paralysis is real. There are too many opinions, courses and strategies to use them all. As a mother, I know the fear of choosing the wrong thing. Yet I’ve learned from experience that there is often more than one right choice, and there is also time to course-correct if you choose poorly. As long as the phrases “I love you,” “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you” are readily in your repertoire, go forward and do your best.

Recently, I spent the weekend with mothers at our local homeschool conference, situated right in the middle of veteran mothers who raised their kids before the prevalence of the Internet and newer moms who came of age on social media. There is a noticeable difference between those who own their authority and intuition and those who need an expert to confirm their daily food choices and activity schedule.

As one of the speakers said, “Facts alone don’t create wisdom. We can have all the answers without being fully alive.” Made in God’s image, children are people to be loved, not problems to be solved. Loving makes us like God, and learning to love is not a universal 3-step process.

Parenting: Prepping Souls for Heaven

The truth is parenting is the long game, and there are no quick fixes. You are molding a soul for Heaven — that takes time, energy and a lot of prayer. Like every exercise in virtue, the answer to our parenting problems lies in the middle of the two extremes — and there’s not an easy instruction manual on when to be firm and when to show more compassion.

I think if there were secret tips to get humans to behave the first time, God would have used them already on us, his own children. Instead, babies will always upend your schedule. Toddlers will pee their pants and have their meltdowns. Children will not want to do their homework or go to bed on time. This is not a flaw; it is by design that we learn over time and grow through the struggles that stretch us.

Every child is unique. Some kids potty train at 18 months. Most will learn after the age of 3. My first four kids were all early talkers, but I almost put my fifth into early speech intervention until his words came tumbling out closer to 2 years old. Age guidelines are just that — guidelines. I spent so much time worrying about doing things at the right age that I missed out on enjoying the little moments.

Parents, You’ve Got This! (With God, Of Course)

Parents, know yourself instead of letting other people tell you what to do! You have instincts that will help you to be a good parent; you just have to cultivate and listen to them. So much of parenting is growing in self-knowledge. I heard moms say they had to get out of the house every day with toddlers for their sanity, so I thought I did, too. It turns out I lost my sanity trying to go places every day. Moms will tell you they can’t stand dishes in the sink or clutter on the counter. I learned that doesn’t bother me — but a sticky floor covered in crumbs definitely will!

You only learn how to be a parent by actually doing it. You won’t have all the answers right away, but experience is the best teacher. The Internet might have some helpful advice, but the bottom line is you have God-given wisdom and authority over your children, so use it.

Every day comes with new challenges in parenting as our kids get older and change. I find myself asking the Holy Spirit to guide me in how to respond to this outburst or that request — and often after the fact because I forgot to ask his help in the moment. But my Catholic faith gives me guidelines for understanding the human person and what parenting is for.

My advice? Take advice from real, in-person veteran moms who aren’t out to make a dollar off of you. And the best place to find the ones worth talking to is at your parish. Encounters with other parents in person rather than online can be a very life-affirming, incarnational experience.

Here’s to less influence and more inspiration.