Is Parenting More Challenging in 2010?

I’ll be speaking about this topic Sunday, but it’s one that many parents ask me about. Though we don’t need experts to tell us so, they all concur: Yes. Technology alone makes it difficult for parents to both control their children’s exposure to what’s going on in the wider world (earthquakes, terrorism, plane crashes), and also to know what impact that has on them. Our children are more stressed than those in previous generations as a result of all this media access. At the same time, we’re all worried about the economy. Even something as simple as buying a tomato at the supermarket can be fraught with anxiety as we increasingly hear about tainted foods. Our anxiety can feed our children’s anxiety. And so it goes. I’ll be writing more about this in Long Island Parent magazine soon. But for now, I’d like to hear what you think about this question: Is parenting more challenging for you in 2010 than it has been before?