{"id":571444,"date":"2026-07-28T03:34:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T03:34:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/571444\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T03:34:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T03:34:20","slug":"raising-them-right-facebook-parenting-groups-were-bad-enough-now-weve-got-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/571444\/","title":{"rendered":"Raising them right: Facebook parenting groups were bad enough. Now we\u2019ve got AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Niamh O’Reilly<\/p>\n

I\u2019M WILLING TO bet most millennial parents have, at some point, been a member of at least one Facebook parenting group over the course of their child\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

When I was expecting for the first time 10 years ago, it was standard that you\u2019d join one of these groups from the moment you found out you were pregnant.<\/p>\n

For most parents, online groups like these have been a mine of information and support, asking advice about anything from bedtime routines to anxiously posting pictures of a child\u2019s bruise or rash, wondering if it\u2019s something to worry about.<\/p>\n

At a time when new parents can feel more isolated than ever, groups like these have provided a sense of reassurance from other parents at similar stages of the child-rearing journey. They aren\u2019t always perfect, however, and sometimes you must wade through some serious shade to get to the helpful parts.<\/p>\n

Question \u2013 My son has these small red spots on his back this morning, anyone know what it could be?<\/p>\n

Mary \u2013 Dats deffo bed bugs, wash everythn in house at 90 degrees hun.<\/p>\n

Karen \u2013 Chicken Pox, I\u2019d bet my life on it.<\/p>\n

Jane \u2013 Definitely NOT Chicken Pox, it looks like heat rash, my 2 had it bad last week, blocked pores from bad suncream.<\/p>\n

Sarah \u2013 Do the tumbler test just 2 b sure luv. Cud b meningitis!!<\/p>\n

Jessica \u2013 Y have u not rung the GP yet? That looks bad\u2026 does ur child have a fever?<\/p>\n

Jane \u2013 Don\u2019t bother wit GP, just go 2 ur pharmacy and ask thats wot dey are 4.<\/p>\n

Jessica \u2013 U can\u2019t go 2 a pharmacy @Jane 4 Chicken Pox, its V contagious! Just show the pharmacist a pic of the rash.<\/p>\n

Jane \u2013 It\u2019s deffo NOT Chicken Pox @Jessica. R U the Chicken Pox police???<\/p>\n

Emily \u2013 Looks viral. I spent a fortune on Chicken Pox stuff and then my kid\u2019s rash disappeared overnight. Don\u2019t waste ur money.<\/p>\n

Karen \u2013 I agree @Jessica. It\u2019s 100% Chicken Pox.<\/p>\n

Laura \u2013 Is he allergic to dairy by any chance hon? Looks like a classic allergy rash 2 me.<\/p>\n

Jessica \u2013 I didn\u2019t say it WOZ Chicken Pox @Jane, I said it\u2019s V contagious, can u not read?<\/p>\n

Jenny \u2013 Yep, dats bed bugs alright. U need to wash everything on boil hun.<\/p>\n

You get the idea. While the advice doled out in online groups and forums might not always be accurate, and usually descends into a judgy slagging match, at least you know you are getting feedback from real people, before you invariably do phone the GP or go to the pharmacist.\n<\/p>\n

Ramped up again with AI<\/p>\n

In the last couple of years though, parents are shunning these online groups in favour of AI. Yes, the same AI that has regular hallucinations and delusions of grandeur so whopping it might tell you that Kanye West did indeed invent the telephone or there are only two \u2018R\u2019s\u2019 in Strawberry.<\/p>\n

One 2024 study found<\/a> that around 71% of parents had used ChatGPT for parenting queries. A more recent survey found that as many as 62% of Gen Z parents and 42% of millennial parents said they use AI programmes<\/a> to help with parenting questions.<\/p>\n

Parents are asking AI programmes for advice on everything from creating a bedtime routine for a baby, to making up bedtime stories for toddlers, to whether or not their child\u2019s rash is anything to worry about or when is a fever high enough to go do the hospital with.<\/p>\n

Last year, OpenAI\u2019s CEO and new dad Sam Altman enthused to late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon about how much he relied on his programme ChatGPT in raising his baby.<\/p>\n

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon<\/a> \/ YouTube<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot imagine having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT,\u201d he said, as he recalled how he consulted the AI programme for reassurance about why his son was not crawling at six months compared to a friend\u2019s child.<\/p>\n

A step too far?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing wrong with looking for reassurance or help when you become a new parent. It\u2019s a completely life-altering change, and at times you feel as though you\u2019ve landed on an alien planet. But where my mum\u2019s generation might have asked her mother, sister, friends, the family doctor or simply consulted a parenting book for advice, for today\u2019s parents that so-called village doesn\u2019t exist in the same way it once did. So, we turned to the internet in our droves.<\/p>\n

Tech isn\u2019t all bad, though. Show me a new parent these days who hasn\u2019t Googled things like \u201cbaby poo green, bad?\u201d in the middle of the night when at their wits\u2019 end or searched up \u201ccan I die from sleep deprivation?\u201d In the absence of human support, the internet allowed us to feel connected when we hadn\u2019t a notion what to do.<\/p>\n

Previous generations, who bemoan our overreliance on things like parent and baby car parking spaces, video baby monitors and the internet, will no doubt sarcastically query how they raised us without the help of Google? Let\u2019s not forget, though, that in their day they most likely drove around without baby car seats and the generation before them probably rubbed whiskey on a teething baby\u2019s gums.<\/p>\n

The point is that advice and technology are constantly evolving. Today, many simply view AI as the next logical step up from Dr Google, and in a world where modern parents are juggling childcare and work as if their lives depended on it, anything that can save time is extremely attractive.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not immune to AI\u2019s charms either; while I\u2019m not asking it for bedtime routines or breastfeeding advice, when my children ask me a question I don\u2019t know the answer to, which they do multiple times a day, I invariably say, \u201cwe\u2019ll ask AI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"question-for-artificial-intelligence-on-smartphone-screen-what-are-the-signs-of-a-healthy-parent-child-relationship\"
\n Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n

Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n

Some will say it\u2019s a slippery slope. Or you could argue that parents are just being savvy using AI programmes to save time. Whether that\u2019s asking it to come up with a brand-new bedtime story for a toddler because you are exhausted or prompting it to collate the entirety of the internet\u2019s expertise on the best nighttime routine for a baby to sleep through the night, it\u2019s the ultimate shortcut. It\u2019s easy to see how it is fast becoming the automatic go-to source of parenting advice for everything from baby milestones to, more worryingly, childhood illness advice.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the big problem here. The tech is not up to snuff yet to rely on AI\u2019s parenting advice as gospel. At least with Googling something, there\u2019s a bit of legwork involved.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve got to click into pages; you can check your sources and decide for yourself if the information is trustworthy or not. And what about the human element? At least with online parenting groups you\u2019ll get some human interaction, plus a heavy dose of conflicting opinions with a side of judgment, but it\u2019s a damn sight better than AI spewing out some statement it believes is correct.<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s with its annoying in-built tendency to please and flatter the user, rather than tell you how it is?<\/p>\n

Question \u2013 My child has a temperature of 39, what should I do?<\/p>\n

AI answer \u2013 Oh wow, that\u2019s such an interesting question, and it\u2019s amazing to hear you are taking your child\u2019s health so seriously \u2013 you are obviously a wonderful parent, and your child is lucky to have you as its primary caregiver.<\/p>\n

Call me old-fashioned, but for now, I think I\u2019d prefer the advice from the Facebook parenting groups, even with the judgy Karen\u2019s tut tutting me, over the dodgy responses AI is churning out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niamh O’Reilly I\u2019M WILLING TO bet most millennial parents have, at some point, been a member of at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[22591,220,218,219,22322,4103,33557,241057,61,60,2211,387,1786,241058,80,3187],"class_list":["post-571444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-adults","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-childhood","tag-children","tag-column","tag-growing-up","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kids","tag-opinion","tag-parenting","tag-perish-the-thought","tag-technology","tag-voices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=571444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}