Becoming a mother does not go with an instruction how to be one. You can’t possibly know everything about parenting even though it feels like you should.

The funniest thing about it is that you walk the same path with every new child you have.

I am a mother of two. My son is 23 and my daughter is 15. When my second child was born, I thought that raising her would be much easier because I already paid my dues with my first one. But as any mother who has children with age difference like this, I was wrong.

Because they were born in different eras, nothing that worked with the eldest, worked with my youngest.

The Internet

My son started surfing the web already as a teenager. Of course, he played some videogames on a computer earlier, but the internet did not bother him too much until everybody started to use Facebook.

He preferred to spend his free time riding bikes with his friends or assembling airplane models.

By the time my daughter turned seven, she had already had accounts on all social networks that exist. She can spend days in front of the screen.

I understood that it could be a problem pretty early and had to use measures that I never used with my eldest. I’ve read a lot of literature and some facts I’ve found were shocking. Inappropriate content, sexual predators and so on – are the real dangers that my girl might encounter.

I started using special software to block inappropriate sites and apps and to monitor and limit her activity on the web. And I should say it is an unusual experience for me.

Hometasks

Kids can’t possibly like home assignments. My son hated it and my daughter has no desire to do it either.

Still I’ve noticed a tendency: after-millennium kids are much less concentrated and doing home tasks takes much more time and effort. I believe there are a few reasons to that.

The first one is that we live in a world, where information is just everywhere. It surrounds us and our kids and flows through our minds. It is a good thing in some way, but our brain resources are overused and so modern kids find it hard to fulfil even the easiest tasks.

The second one is a bit more trivial. My son had all the fun primarily outside, so nothing distracted him at home. He understood that he needed to get his assignments done before he could meet his friends, so he tried to them as fast as he possible.

Spending so much time checking home assignments was not something I’ve easily got used to. Luckily my eldest backed me up at the beginning, so everything went rather smoothly.

Maturity

Modern kids grow up much faster. In some cases it is a really bad thing, they tend to become sexually active at a really young age as well as to do other “adult stuff”.

But it does not mean there are no good things about it. I see that my daughter is much more mature at her 15 than my son was at 18. She is able to make decisions and take care of herself perfectly.

I had to learn how to give her more freedom, while controlling her more. I know, that it may sound controversial, but, for example, I am not afraid to leave her at home alone or to ask for her help. I know, she’ll manage to do everything just fine.

Still, I have to pay much more attention to what she dies and who are the people she spends her time with.

It is progress after all

I not trying to say in this article, that some kids are easier to deal with and some are a nightmare. The point is, that motherhood always changes and there possibly cannot be an ultimate recipe of raising a child.

Every era has its own rules and understanding of what is normal. Trying to oppose those constant changes is useless and unwise. Instead we have to progress as well.