raising Renesmee

how the information age has affected the attitudes and aesthetics of parenthood

Almost everyone can recognize and articulate at least some of the big differences between parenting today versus parenting even twenty years ago. The popularity of the internet is probably the largest source of both these changes and public awareness of these changes. In particular, parenting blogs and forums have become insanely popular, with subsets that appeal to different parenting styles: the famed Christian mommy blog is perhaps the most famous example of this phenomenon, but let’s just say Facebook is probably getting half its current engagement from commenters flocking to the site to ridicule the latest nonsensical baby name variation (or overshare about their kid’s weird rash). 

And names aren’t the only hot topic: Montessori-style toys, gender reveal parties, and changing attitudes and beliefs about safety, technology use, and children in general have become established areas of focus for parents who use the internet. Let’s start with names.

I hope you all remember the uber-viral meme: a pretty blonde mom-to-be wearing an absolutely 2004 frilly pastel top is standing in front of a chalkboard with the potential names of her new daughter: “Lakynn” is circled (she and her husband ended up going with Laikynn). The good-natured blogger took her viral fame in stride, posting a second version of the photo for her son Tatum and a final one for her dog Maverick (though Pup Tart and Chewbarka were strong contenders). The popularity of these photos is indicative of a trend in baby-naming, where parents eschew the name-books and top-100 lists in favor of old-fashioned revivals and “quirky” variations. 

“This is my daughter Neveah — diD yOu kNoW iT’s heAvEn sPellEd bAckWarDs???”

Haley becomes Haileigh, Jack becomes Jaxxon, and the online shaming begins. Parents don’t want their child to be one of five other Emmas in the classroom, so they can sometimes swing in the opposite direction. Without the internet, it’s unlikely any of them would even know how popular a name was, nor would names be so strongly and universally associated with elements of meme culture e.g. Karen: an entitled middle-aged white woman who wants to speak to your manager.

We could continue ad nauseam with Chad, Brad, Stacy, Tracy, Sharon, Susan, Becky, Kevin, and Felicia — you get it, they’re memes. It’s understandable that people would want to steer far away from the possibility of their child being saddled with stereotypes and subsequent ridicule; but “McKinsleigh” is not the answer, nor is “Braedyn.” Furthermore, these hyper-unique names have become memes in and of themselves, as testified by online communities such as Reddit’s /r/namenerdcirclejerk, dedicated to mocking gratuitous -eigh suffixes and arbitrarily chosen nouns as names (there are apparently huge swaths of kids named Juniper Wren). We’d be doing you a disservice by neglecting to mention the appearance of a “Ratleen” on this forum; and of course, the title of this post pays homage to the cringeworthy “Renesmee,” brainchild of Stephanie Meyer for the only daughter of Edward Cullen and Bella Swan in Twilight.

There is, of course, a race element when it comes to our inherited monikers: after many childhood instances of bullying for “unusual” names, non-white commentators have pointed out the schadenfreude they feel now that the commonness of traditional white names has been turned on its head. There are no universal Mohammed stereotypes, despite it being one of the world’s most popular and historically timeless names. Marijuana Pepsi Vandyck wrote her Ph. D. dissertation on uncommon African-American names in the classroom; such names are not only joked about relentlessly, but profiled in many ways. Job applications with “black names” like Tyrone and Latonya get less callbacks than applications with “white names,” even with the same resume experience and credentials listed. 

All this to say, it seems hard to believe that such Reddit favorites as Ratleen and Candida (yes, like the yeast infection) would have arisen without the influence of social media. 

Another notable parenting trend out of social media is an obsession with supposedly all-natural and holistic toys reminiscent of pre-electricity eras. This movement implicitly demonizes anything in bright primary colors and Fisher-Price plastic, and especially shifts away from battery-operated toys to be replaced by various handmade wooden creations in colors as wide-ranging as “porridge” and “brown lunch bag.” The philosophy behind this is the Montessori approach to parenting, which is basically unschooling-lite — childrens’ own interests should be honored, independence should be encouraged, and paradigms of parental structure, control, and punishment will not create an environment in which they can thrive. In theory these all sound like perfectly reasonable ideas, but when it comes to how they have proliferated social media feeds (specifically Instagram and TikTok) with a nod toward aesthetics over the wellbeing and development of children, there are various other underlying motivations. 

For one, the displaced toys are indicated as analogous to cheap, tacky distractions given to children by lazy, technology-addicted parents; the Montessori-style toys, on the other hand, evoke the tidy home of an upper-middle class white mom who has the resources to spend sixty dollars on the Olli Ella Kids Mushroom Basket from Anthropologie for her beautiful, well-dressed child who never spits up on their immaculate fit. From BPA-free stacking cups to cottage-core dolls, it’s perfectly curated for social media and makes viewers envious. The colors are all matte, muted earth tones and neutrals that give the feeling of being eco-conscious, but are just as disposable as the seven-dollar Walmart variety.

Whether children actually enjoy playing with these boring greenwashed toys often seems to be an afterthought — TikTok star @sadbeigelady, played by Hayley DeRoche, has gone viral mocking the craze in a German accent to pay tribute to stony documentary filmmaker Werner Herzog. In particular, she refers to the children in the advertisements for these toys: they all look somber, pensive, almost Dickensian — certainly, they contain multitudes. To paraphrase DeRoche in her interview with writer and sociologist Kathryn Jezer-Morton (whose witty reporting we’ve relied on for this section), these advertised children embody the tragedy of plenty, the ennui of having everything. 

And of course, there’s the distinction between “girl toys” and “boy toys.” While one might hope this dichotomy has become obsolete, a quick glance through the feed proves that outdated attitudes about gender and sex still prevail: girls are largely still saddled with dollhouses and tiaras, while boys are more often seen with trucks and LEGOs. The apparent lack of progress is disheartening, but perhaps unsurprising given that spending on, attention to, and hand-wringing about gender reveal parties has famously skyrocketed in the social media age.

We’ll get to the funny, alarming, and/or eyebrow-raising examples shortly — to cut to the chase, these parties seem like the imposition of a ritual onto lives that have become largely secular, with little need for religious or spiritual ceremonies that mark the passing of time or the importance of fleeting moments except for holidays, birthdays, weddings, and funerals. In other words, an excuse for not just a party, but to feel like part of a larger community and to feel like you (with your partner) are permanently impacting the fabric of the universe. All of this sounds very flowery, but for many, this sort of gravitas for big life events is missing and they need a way to commemorate them. 

Religious ceremonies are not the only area where people feel loss; in today’s fast-paced society (not to sound like I’m writing a corny college essay), we are less likely to stick around for the majority of our lives in one place long enough to develop the sort of community relationships that allow for the continued relevance of state fairs and street parties, scouting troops and bake sales, cotillions and quinceañeras. Perhaps gender reveal parties have arisen as a sort of half-baked substitute, attempting to infuse commercialized significance into a void left by the decline of more authentic rituals.

These parties often require delivering a note containing the sex of the future baby straight from the doctor’s notepad to the local bakery, lest pink or blue cupcakes not delight party guests. Sometimes, a trusted family friend purchases pink or blue balloons, or puts streamers inside a black balloon for the expecting couple to pop. In rare cases, these parties can be dangerous: in 2020, a California couple’s insistence on using blue firecrackers to announce to guests that they were having a boy-unless-indicated-otherwise famously resulted in them setting off the El Dorado wildfire, which burned across wide swaths of Southern California (over thirty-five square miles in nearly two months) and claimed a firefighter’s life. We hope the potential Instagram likes were worth it. 

All of these are examples of changing attitudes (and aesthetics) about parenting that have been severely influenced by the internet. Wanting your child to be unique, educated, and celebrated is not a bad instinct, and certainly these issues on an individual level are much less problematic than certain attitudes from prior generations; but nonetheless we shouldn’t take “better than the Boomers” as high praise. 

There are other areas of change; for example, we’ve largely moved past the two extremes of completely free-range parents and completely obsessive tiger moms to a narrower spectrum ranging from reasonable freedom to helicopter parenting (inflated fears about stranger danger and secret pedophile rings have hindered progress, despite the reality that any dangers to children are usually from people within their parents’ social circle; see: Catholic church child sexual abuse scandals). Millennials, jaded by accusations of being a “participation trophy” generation — ironically from the very generation who raised them — seem to have struck a balance between not moralizing normal childhood failures and not letting setbacks discourage their kids from getting up and trying again. 

Two issues on which modern parents are more polarized than ever, technology use and safety, are often intertwined. What is the correct response to the social necessity of smartphones: instituting “no-TV-till-three” rules or teaching children about the possible pitfalls and dangers of unfettered internet access as early as possible? Should we go back to free-birthing babies in tubs and sleeping with them in our beds, or put our faith in a for-profit medical system and keep constantly up to date on how to arrange a baby in their crib to mitigate the risk of SIDs? These are difficult questions that we and our antecedent generation are or will be wrestling with, and the answer isn’t as easy as “somewhere in the middle” when the wellbeing and safety of our children is at stake. 

It would be easy to wave off these disagreements as “we’re all just doing the best we can.” This is often true, and at least somewhat comforting, but when it comes to kids, people have understandably strong opinions. But as the world changes, so will our attitudes, and the eternal forces of the functional past and the evolving future will always be in contention. All we can do is keep caring enough to fight the good fight (and stop further uses of atrocities like “Ratleen”).