It’s 5:00am, the boy is asleep, and I’m googling. I’m googling something about sleep. Sleep then lead on to caffeine, caffeine went on to cake, cake went on to ‘ways to eat cake AND lose weight’ (yeah, zero results back on that one).
Google has had a lot to answer over the past 20-something years. Everything from ‘places to take a boy on a first date’ to ‘places to take a girl on a first date’, ‘how to remove burnt potato from a pan’ to ‘why do potatoes hate me’, even ‘am I going to die’ following a rather stupid midweek pub crawl.
I’ve googled hundreds of actors, musicians, and celebrities because I’ve recognised them from somewhere but couldn’t remember where, symptoms / why is my ‘something’ doing this, and random nuggets (useless pieces of information) to confirm that I was right (wrong).
Even when we to were trying to conceive, the wife googled everything from OPK results to cervical mucus (TMI, I know). I simply googled cute Harry Potter baby grows (I lie, I totally googled how I was feeling and added ‘pregnancy symptom’ to the end of it).
Now we’re parents, our need to ‘quickly’ google something hasn’t stopped. It answers our questions, calms our worries, affirms our doubt (even then, I had to google whether the word ‘affirm’ was the right word I wanted to use).
If you looked at my phone, here’s what my Google search history would look like now that I’m a parent…
“Recipes for old bananas…”
“How to deal with a constipated baby?” (Yeah, don’t overdose your baby on banana…)
“How much sleep should I be getting?”
“How much sleep should a baby get?” (Annoyingly, a lot more than what I’m getting!)
“Christmas craft ideas…”
“My dog ingested salt water dough…”
“Can I freeze «insert pretty much everything I cook»?”
“LGBTQ+ families / groups in my area…”
“Why doesn’t my baby roll / crawl?”
“Is a baby wipe a suitable cleaning instrument?”
“Can breast milk fix…?”
“Geek baby clothing…”
“Cheap woven wraps…”
“Cheap babywearing coat…”
“Does my dog like my baby?”
“Can my neighbours complain about a screaming baby?”
The list is endless, and I will probably never stop googling, but one thing for sure is that long gone are the days where I search for drink vouchers, hotel deals, and those gorgeous pair of boots. I’m too busy searching for free soft play and ways to get sick out of wool.
What does your search history look like?
K
2 comments
This is brilliant! I have tried weaned myself off Dr Google, it drove me a bit insane in the early months. BUT I was googling something the other day about my toddler’s sleep and started it ‘my toddler…’. The first google suggestion was ‘my toddler hates me’. Oh my, not something I’d previously considered but actually at midnight and 2:00am and 4:00am, well I’m wondering now!!!!
Hahaha! I love that game where you start with an open question like “why does…” The results you find!
Dr. Google has a lot to answer for, probably the majority of patients in a doctor’s surgery who think they have a rare disease going on the symptoms on Dr. Google!
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