My son in the 90’s when he’d fall asleep in his carseat listening to classical music.

What do you think about parenthood in the 1990’s? Was it much different than today? I saw an article that piqued my interest because it talked about 90’s moms and how it was an easier time to be a mom. My kids were born in the 90s, so I am a 90’s mom (and a 00’s, 10’s and 20’s mom, too.) The writer Stephanie Sullivan explained how she got caught up on Pinterest reading posts of parenting advice and each one made her more insecure. The article is called Parenting in today’s society is exhausting, so let’s be more like ’90s moms in the Omaha World-Herald. Read the full article here.

Here’s an excerpt:

Does anyone wish they could go back to a simpler time of parenting? Like the ’90s? (I chose this era since I’m a by-product of being raised in the ’90s and I think I turned out okay. You can ask my husband for confirmation on that one.) Sure, ’90s mothers were still concerned with raising confident, kind and respectful children, but they didn’t have the option of searching for solutions on Pinterest or turning to strangers on Facebook. They just did it and probably questioned themselves much less in the process.

They used this thing called their gut, and when they were struggling with something, they turned to family and friends for opinions and advice. Above all, they trusted they were making the right decision for their child because no one made them think otherwise.

While social media can be a huge advantage to raising children these days — finding support groups, play dates, birthday party ideas, etc. — I fear it’s only increased our anxiety and made us question if we’re equipped to handle this parenting gig at all.

I often think I was lucky — and my kids too — that I didn’t have Instagram or Facebook when they were infants. I took tons of pictures of them with an old fashioned camera that used film. I had to physically walk the finished roll down to our local photo lab and get prints made. I know I would have over-posted about my kids because I did when they were in middle school and high school. I wrote about the downside of posting too many photos of our kids here.

I think it would have been hard to be inundated with my friends’ photos of their kids, see birthday parties my children weren’t invited to and getting so much unsolicited advice. Yes, it might have made parenting more difficult than in the 90’s before social media and internet. Although I know I made bad decisions as a parent, said things I wish I could take back and didn’t let my kids fail — I trusted my gut.

My happy baby standing up at the edge of the tub.

What are your thoughts of how parenting has changed in due to social media?