Low Tech Mom

When I became a stay-at-home-mom following the birth of my first child in 2004, I left my career in marketing for technology companies.

Jumping head first into motherhood in an age before mom-friendly social networking, I completely let go of my former tech life. I was busy bringing three kids into this world (in just over four years) and before I knew it, technology had left me behind.

For a non-engineer, I used to be tech savvy. Engrossed in a world of telecommunications, I knew a lot about mobile, wireless, telephony and cable technologies. I knew what was cutting edge and I understood the advantages of different communication protocols.

I used to synchronize my Palm in the 1990s and knew how to efficiently browse on 2G mobile networks at the turn of the century (believe me, not many did!).

But when I became a mom, I bought myself a flowery diary because I liked the cover (I never used it!) and when my husband upgraded to the first smartphones I waved my hands — “I don’t need one!”

My husband replaced me as the in-house tech expert and I remained a low-tech mom. It is one of those things that just happened and I am not comfortable with it.

I need to find a way to reverse this trend without having to schedule too much time reading up on technology. Beyond being useful, a little tech expertise is fun to have and a good thing to pass on to my kids. After all, it was my mom who taught me how to program in Basic on a Vic-20 in the early 1980s!

Happily, things are starting to change. I now own a smartphone and had to start using a tablet to review my eBook. I am not a big user of either but gently I am pushing myself back into becoming more tech aware. That being said, the other day I had a conference call with my eBook developers and as we viewed an app on screen, I had to admit to using Explorer as my browser.

There was a silence. “I know,” I said. “I’m so 1990s!”