It Takes A Village — Or A Library…
Raising kids today through the wisdom of the online village.
When I became pregnant, I thought that I knew plenty about being a parent. I had four younger siblings, stacks of younger cousins and second cousins, a niece and a nephew. I babysat, I worked in a children’s bookshop, I ran children’s birthday parties. I had it covered.
But the pregnancy thing — not so much. I really didn’t know what to expect, and I wasn’t even in the same physical location as my mother — thousands of miles away, in fact. I didn’t know what to ask, or what to expect, so I went to my usual place of help: the bookshelf.
It’s staggering, the number of parenting, pregnancy and birth books out there. I stood and stared at the shelves, at a complete loss. And as soon as I announced that I was pregnant, I started to get offers of books from other mothers.
It seems that the printed word is our new village — few of us live with or near our older female relatives nowadays, so we are forced to turn to strangers for the wisdom and knowledge we need as new parents.
Whether we join a Facebook group, visit an online magazine or platform like Medium, read a thousand blogs or turn to…
