How Do We Bring Up the Children Born Between 2010-2024?

Plus, why an online community of parents matters more than ever

Happy Launch Day, y’all! Welcome to the first official issue of Raising Gen Alpha.

I’m Irina, a journalist, editor, and freelance writer for almost two decades. I use storytelling to empower others to take an active role in changing their lives. And I created this newsletter and community because we all want to know the answer to the question: How the eff do we bring up the children born between 2010 and 2024—aka Gen Alpha? You know, considering *waves hands* the state of the world.

But before we get into all the things, I wanted to explain why the community aspect of Raising Gen Alpha is so, so important. And I’m going to start with a personal story…

My son was born at the end of March 2020.

Yes, that’s right. Practically the definition of a pandemic baby—he entered the world after it had just shut down and before we knew about the importance of masks.

The first month of his life went by in a blur as my partner and I did all of the usual things one does with a newborn. We woke up in the middle of the night. I tried to figure out breastfeeding. We changed him, held him while he napped, and took care of all 7 pounds, 11 ounces of him. We were exhausted as all new parents have been throughout the history of humanity.

But we were also scared out of our minds. And not for all of the same reasons that new parents usually are. We were terrified of the global virus that seemed to be getting closer and closer every minute of every day.

I watched those videos about how to clean your groceries after bringing them into the house and followed them thoroughly.

I devoured a constant stream of news podcasts—which was easy while on maternity leave and not actually ever leaving the house.

I stressed about if and how to introduce my son to my parents, who lived only 10 minutes away.

I tried not to panic when my husband went back to work after a month because he worked in medical manufacturing and his company had to stay open to, ya know, make things that were helping people.

Most of all though, I quietly felt like I was losing my mind.

A lot of us were at the time, I know. Every single parent I’ve talked to about the start of the pandemic felt the creeping, crawling panic that tried to overtake us. It felt like my body was being filled with that black sludge that made up the villain in the 90s movie Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. (If you don’t know what I am talking about, I highly recommend checking it out. It’s a shockingly progressive view of climate change in 1992 and what humans are doing to Mother Nature.)

Needless to say, it was hard. And it sucked.

Eventually, I ventured outside of my anxiety-listening to news podcasts and began to venture out into the world of parenting. The online world of parenting, that is.

You may have heard about last year’s study that linked the time women spent in Facebook mom groups with their levels of cortisol. The researchers found that the moms who spent more time in these groups were stressed the eff out likely due to “negative interactions with other moms on social networking sites and more time spent with these interactions.” (Quick note about the study: It involved 47 participants who were mostly white and college educated. So perhaps take the results with a bit of a grain of salt.)

You may even be a parent who experienced this mom group-induced stress. But that wasn’t my experience at all.

During a time when I felt like I was drowning in that black sludge (see above), mom groups became my salve.

All of us parents felt panicked at the time (and still do, tbh) but it felt especially painful to be a new mom with no support system and nowhere to really turn to for help. I couldn’t have a meal train. I couldn’t have a friend come over to hold my baby while I took a nap. I couldn’t give anyone but my husband a hug at the end of a particularly bad day—something that research has shown can increase oxytocin (aka the “love hormone”).

It was awful.

But during a time when so few social interactions were available to us, connecting with other first-time moms on social media was incredibly healing. I had nowhere else to turn when a virtual lactation consultant visit didn’t yield results for my low milk supply. I couldn’t go anywhere else for questions about all of the bleeding.

There was nobody I could talk to about the incredible loneliness of first-time motherhood when you feel like you’re a mommy machine—spending all of your waking hours either trying to feed your child or trying to get them to sleep. And the unique loneliness of going through all of the usual difficulties with literally nobody else to turn to for in-person support.

After all, there were no new mom support groups like the ones I loved to watch in the Australian show The Letdown and in the popular Workin’ Moms.

All I had were my mom groups online—and they were crucial to my sanity and survival during these unprecedented times. (Don’t you just hate saying that phrase now?)

Not all of the groups are great. And yes, I’ve seen plenty of toxic behavior. But my hope is that we parents of Gen Alpha kids can come together in this community and share the things that we need to share. Not the hate and the arguments. Not the judging of what other parents do with their children. Not the unhelpful, rude comments. But the joys and anxieties and everything in between as we try to figure out what it means to raise our little global citizens.

I can’t promise it will always be awesome but I can promise you this: This will always be a space for you and your needs.

Yes, we’re here to talk about our kiddos but we can’t talk about parenting without talking about you, the parent.

So I hope you’ll join me in this adventure and in the start of this community. Maybe you need it (or want it) as much as I do.

Introduce yourself below! And if you want to share, tell me about your own experience in those first few months of the pandemic. And if you don’t want to share publicly, feel free to reach out to me at raisingenalpha@gmail.com. I’m here.

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Did you know that Ferngully: The Last Rainforest has an all-star cast? Samantha Mathis voices Crysta, Robin Williams voices Batty Koda, and the delectable Tim Curry voices Hexxus.

Talk soon,
Irina (she/her) - raising a March 2020 gen alpha kid

P.S. This week, I’m watching Tim Curry’s weirdly sexy rendition of bad guy Hexxus singing “Toxic Love” in Ferngully: The Last Rainforest. Clearly, I’m on a roll here.