I almost don’t even need to write this blog entry and you can probably guess how things have been. Pumpkin has been battling respiratory illness, I’ve been battling the Children’s Clinic, yadda, yadda, yadda. I’m sure it’s getting old to my faithful readers; God knows it is getting old to me. But after the third diagnosis by the same doctor in a two week period, and my subsequent dismantling of his opinion on WebMD I got to wondering how in the world people parented before technology.
I’m not even referring to days of yore when kids were bred for working and you lost a few to diphtheria along the Oregon Trail. I’m talking about a mere 20 years ago. I’m talking about MY lifetime. Like, how did my parents do it? How did they survive? Better yet, how did I survive? What in the world did people do when they didn’t have Google, WTE.com, Facebook, and portable DVD players?
My research started with a consultation with my own mother. First question: how did you ever go anywhere more than 10 minutes away without a DVD player in the car. Answer: we sang songs. Well, yes, I know that, we sing songs too, but is it really humanly possible to sing songs for three hours straight? And even if it were possible, did it actually work? By the time I’m through with one medley of the ABCs, If You’re Happy and You Know It, and the Itsy Bitsy Spider, I’m lucky to get her to “crawl up the spout again” without trying to crawl out of her car seat. So what was the difference – was I just that much more easily amused as a child? Did I just not know better? Or did my parents possess the patience of Job and the musical prowess of Sonny and Cher?
Entertainment aside, there is the ever-present question of medical and other milestone issues. Like, how did my parents know when I was ready to get rid of the (fill in the blank: pacifier, bottle, crib, blankie, etc.)? How did my parents know if I was (fill in the blank: walking, talking, eating, etc.) on time? Who informed everyone about tummy time and which way to sleep to avoid SIDS? Did people send smoke signals? Did people just not care? You can’t tell me people back then just had such finely-tuned parental instincts that they did not need constant reassurance from the Internet that things were fine. Is one generation really long enough to lose that touch?
And how did my parents know whether my pediatrician was mis- or over- or under-diagnosing me? Certainly there wasn’t a time when you could actually trust your doctor’s opinion without checking it out yourself (if not going in armed with your own diagnosis and suggested prescriptions)? Were doctors, along with parents, so much different back then?
And I hesitate to even get myself started about Facebook. I mean, it is hard to imagine a world where you actually don’t care that your fifth grade classmate’s older brother’s kid is only 6 months old and already fluent in two languages and eating with chopsticks. Harder still to imagine a world where you didn’t have 5,000 “friends,” few of whom are actual friends and most of whom aren’t exactly forthcoming in their Facebook bragging. Nobody gets on Facebook and, after posting a not-so-flattering picture of their tot updates their status to say “My kid’s nose is snotty and he has a delayed speech pattern” or “My kid seems pretty average and I’m not such a great mom.” No, instead we feel compelled to get on Facebook and post glamorous photos of our perfect families, not ever revealing that is the ONE shot of one hundred where everyone isn’t crying. And then, somewhere deep inside, the rest of us feel compelled to compete. It’s got to be the newest form of technology-induced neuroses.
The only conclusion I can draw is that technology has been both a blessing and a curse to parenthood. God knows I’ve had to moderate myself from those early days when I checked every one of Pumpkin’s stats against a variety of websites. Sure, road trips have gotten easier, but we’ve opened ourselves up to a whole new set of concerns, unhealthy competition, and time-wasting. Maybe it really was the good old days when a parent didn’t know any better and when they went to the doctor they didn’t have a preconceived concern that the coughing could really be a sign of mucopolysacharridosis.
So, I’ll be doing less Googling and more tickling, but I will keep posting perfect pictures of our beautiful girl. We aren’t like those other people I was referring to – she really is practically perfect in every way *wink*.
yes, she surely is practically perfect in every way *wink* and, I love you, Somer !
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