Parenting is Now a Side-Hustle in IT

Having kids in 2025 is as much about technology management as parenting.

sketch by author

In the 9th decade of the 20th century, parents around the US were terrified of kidnapping, MTV, Madonna, and Satanism. They worried about AIDS, taught us to “just say no”, and checked our Halloween candy for razor blades while ruminating on their fears of communism.

It’s easy to look back and see how ridiculous it all was, but we only had access to information on the news, in community circles, and whatever outdated hogwash was buried in those Encyclopedia Britannicas your mom bought from the traveling salesman.

My parents attempted to protect me from danger by limiting my access to material they felt was inappropriate by the standards of the day, which included plenty of fear and religious connotation clinging to the day like stench on a garbage truck. They monitored and policed what we watched on TV, not knowing we were sneaking down to the neighbor’s house to watch Freddy Krueger slash teens to bits.

Now I’m a parent, and of course I’m worried about what my kids are exposed to. While my parents worried about what we watched on MTV and which movies we rented from Blockbuster, they didn’t have to manage myriad devices, unlimited platforms, infinite sources of “entertainment”, or endless algorithms designed to spoon-feed us junk food until we rot into a pool of our own ooze.

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The amount of time I spend on technology and device management is staggering. If I’m not actively managing their access to devices, I’m arguing and negotiating with them about what they can do for how long and when.

Apps to control apps, new devices to grant access, new apps to download and manage. School-owned Chromebooks to be managed through parental controls in the router. Android devices to be managed in the Google Family Link app. Alexa devices to be linked with tablets and headphones and speakers. Streaming services to be signed in on all Roku devices, accounts linked on video game consoles, and now AI chatbots and misinformation everywhere. I mean, for fuck’s sake. It’s fucking exhausting.

I want it to be known that I’m not policing everything they’re doing, either. They’re going to be exposed to the world, so I’m open to letting them peruse and discover and then come talk to me about it. But managing their time and the technology of it all is Sisyphean.

Parenting is now a side-hustle in IT, but the pay is absolute shit.

Still, something deeper bothers me.

When the kids ask for time on their devices, they’ve shortened the question to asking for “time.” Every time they ask for time, I’m shaken by the deeper meaning of the request. I know I sound like an old man when I say this to them, but sometimes I can’t help myself from saying, “When you’re my age, you’re not going to wish you had more screentime as a kid. You’ll wish you had done something with your time. Like, be a kid.”

Every generation gets nostalgic about the simplicity of times past, but this feels different. I’m under no romantic notion that life was all sunshine and rainbows back then, because lots of things sucked in the late 1900s.

Still, my parents could easily turn off the TV and send us outside to play with other kids in the same boat. Parents today can’t monitor every device, what it has access to, who says what to whom on Instagram, and what the insidious algorithm suggests on YouTube. Instead of sending my kids outside to be bored with the other kids in the same boat, everyone has their own boat and is experiencing the world in isolation.

Even though we’re more emotionally available to our kids than our parents were, we find these technological obstacles just as hard to overcome. Kids are addicted to screens as toddlers, and if they don’t get one screen, they’ll ask for time on another. When I tell them it’s time for the screens to go off, I’m usually met with indignation and disappointment. I’m increasingly sad that I feel more like an internet service provider than a dad.

I struggle with the repeated requests for time on every device, not wanting to sound like an old curmudgeon, and wanting them to live in the same world as their peers. And I also tire of managing all these requests. Managing the technological tools that are supposed to make our lives manageable and easier end up making them more complicated and draining.

This past weekend, I asked the kids if they wanted to camp out in the backyard with me—something we’d done together for several years now. They declined, citing that they were tired from having early school days and wanting the comfort of their beds. I said I understood, but I was sad, and I told them so. I told them my fear was that they wanted to stay inside and have their screens before bed, which, of course, they denied. My fear is that they’re not living, they’re simply existing as slaves to the algorithms and AI. I know my parents thought this about me sitting in front of the TV, too, but it feels more invasive and malicious. Predatory, even.

Time. It’s because they wanted time, which, incidentally, is all I wanted too. But at my age, I want time with them, when they want time away from me. I know how fleeting it is. I know they’ll grow away from me anyway, and I want to soak up as much as I can. That knowledge is something only the perspective of time can provide.

I don’t have any answers for how to avoid so much device and internet management. I wish I did, though this is rhetorical and not a solicitation for advice.

Like so many things, only time will tell. We don’t know yet what the world will look like in 30 years. We don’t know what damage we’re doing, if any. Like my parents’ fear that I’d be a satanic, Madonna-worshipping sloth were (mostly) unrealized, maybe our fears for the future will turn out to be just fears.

Most likely, something between our worst fears and our greatest dreams will come true, something none of us imagined.