Tech-Savvy Moms Are Awesome at Looking Up Stuff on the Internet

By Doug Barry | July 18, 2012 | 2:25pm

Latest

Moms the world over are giving up on the quixotic notion that they can reach some sort of superhuman child-rearing zenith and instead are tapping the bottomless well of information on the internet to help them better communicate with their children. Today’s mom (and we can assume this study focused on women well-heeled enough to own computers) is no longer a “supermom,” nor does she aspire to be — she’s an internet mom, and she’ll definitely be able to figure out if her kids are looking at internet porn even if they delete their browsing history.

The findings from “The Truth About Moms,” a new global survey of 8,600 women released today by McCann Truth Central, reveal that moms have largely dispensed with mawkish efforts to account for every one of their children’s whims. Rather than trying to set their kids on some nonexistent path towards a successful adulthood, moms have become more pragmatic, learning how to deftly integrate their family, work, and personal lives. Most importantly, two thirds of moms regard themselves as tech-savvy, and 81 percent of moms have acquired an expertise in at least one so-called “mom subject” — nutrition, child education, or crafts.

Most Popular

Almost 40 percent of moms who regularly crib parenting tips from the internet say they maintain (with varying degrees of regularity) a blog (in China, a whopping 86 percent of moms are blogging). 70 percent of moms think that the internet only makes them more adept at mothering, a huge proportion that rises to an even higher level in developing countries such as China (91 percent) and India (90 percent). Most likely as a result of all this bubble-bursting information flying rapidly around the world, 65 percent of moms now reject the myth of the “supermom,” and want instead for their kids to have a more honest idea of the flawed, sometimes-mommy-yells-because-she-hates-you people they really are. Fanciful ambitions that their kids will somehow become astronauts (America’s space program is kaput) or captains of industry (the economy blows more than a asthmatic beluga whale) have also been replaced by a more simple desire — 83 percent of moms just want their kids to be happy.

Moms are still under a lot of pressure and, even though the internet offers a lot of really good information, it also offers a whole lot of water trash. Be that as it may, moms are more likely to reward their well-behaved kids with technology, meaning that Apple will soon starting making a line of sleek devices that it will call “carrots,” whose only purpose will be to emit a sonorous clapping noise whenever a kid does something right.

Forget Supermoms — It’s All About the Smart Moms: Survey [Forbes]

Image via Inga Ivanova/Shutterstock.