Sometimes I watch my children use the internet and feel like I’m looking at a completely different world.
Not because technology has changed.
Because the internet itself has changed.
I grew up in an internet that felt slower.
Smaller.
Messier.
You had to sit in front of a family computer.
Wait for the dial-up connection.
Hope nobody picked up the phone halfway through.
The internet wasn’t always available.
It was somewhere you visited.
Not somewhere you lived.
Back then, we weren’t influencers.
We weren’t building personal brands.
We weren’t creating content.
Most of us were just curious kids clicking around websites we probably shouldn’t have been on.
We customised our blogskins.
Spent hours choosing MSN display names.
Waited impatiently for our favourite songs to finish downloading.
And somehow, despite all its flaws, the internet felt more like a place to explore than a place to perform.
Today, my children carry more computing power in their hands than I had access to throughout most of my childhood.
Information arrives instantly.
Videos autoplay endlessly.
Algorithms learn what they like before they even realise it themselves.
The internet isn’t a destination anymore.
It’s the environment they’re growing up in.
And that’s both amazing and terrifying.
My children can learn almost anything.
A question that would have taken me hours to answer now takes seconds.
They can discover hobbies, languages, cultures, and communities from around the world without ever leaving home.
Recently, I’ve watched my daughters use AI.
I assumed they would use it for homework.
I was wrong.
One wanted to explore Korean names.
The other wanted someone to talk to because she was bored.
That moment made me realise something important.
Children don’t always use technology the way adults expect them to.
Sometimes they’re not looking for information.
Sometimes they’re looking for interaction.
Connection.
Curiosity.
Entertainment.
The internet my children are growing up in doesn’t just provide answers.
It responds.
It talks back.
And that’s a completely different experience from the internet I knew.
As a parent, that reality comes with a strange tension.
I don’t want to raise children who are afraid of technology.
Technology will be part of their future whether I like it or not.
But I also don’t want them growing up believing every answer comes from a screen.
Or that every opinion deserves equal trust.
Or that constant connection is the same thing as meaningful connection.
So much of modern parenting feels like navigating territory our own parents never had to face.
My parents worried about where I was going.
I worry about where my children are clicking.
My parents worried about strangers in the neighbourhood.
I worry about strangers in comment sections, gaming chats, and private messages.
The risks are different.
The conversations are different.
The rules are different.
Yet underneath all of it, the goal remains the same.
To help our children grow into thoughtful, capable human beings.
Sometimes I wonder what my children will remember when they become adults.
Will they feel nostalgic about YouTube the way I feel nostalgic about MSN Messenger?
Will they tell stories about their first AI conversations the way I tell stories about waiting for websites to load?
Will they laugh about how primitive today’s technology seems compared to whatever comes next?
Probably.
Because every generation believes its version of the world is normal.
Until it isn’t.
The older I get, the more I realise that parenting isn’t about recreating the childhood we had.
It’s about helping our children navigate the childhood they have.
Their internet isn’t my internet.
Their childhood isn’t my childhood.
And that’s okay.
The goal was never to raise children who grew up exactly like me.
The goal is to raise children who can thrive in a world that looks very different from the one I knew.
Even if I’m still learning how to navigate it myself.
Ummi Noi