There are days I catch myself sounding exactly like my mom and I have to laugh, because if you’d asked 8-year-old me in the 90s, I would’ve sworn that would NEVER happen.

My mom raised me in a time when parenting felt… simpler. Not easier, just simpler. In the 90s, she didn’t have Google to second-guess her every decision. There were no Facebook mom groups, no TikTok trends telling her what she was doing wrong, no 24/7 access to every worst-case scenario imaginable. She had instinct, a landline and maybe a pediatrician she trusted.

And somehow, my sisters and I survived.

I grew up riding bikes with my cousins until the streetlights came on, drinking out of the water hose like it was a five-star beverage, and knocking on friends’ doors without texting first (because… we couldn’t). My mom didn’t track my every move. She trusted the world a little more… and maybe trusted me a little more, too.

Now here I am, raising girls in 2026, and whew… it’s a whole different ball game!

My kids don’t just grow up in a neighborhood… They grow up online. Their world is bigger, louder, faster and way more complicated than mine ever was. There are apps I have to monitor, conversations I have to explain earlier than I ever expected, and pressures they face that didn’t even exist when I was their age.

Back then, comparison was limited to who had the coolest Lisa Frank folder. Now? It’s constant, curated, filtered and it’s everywhere.

And if I’m being honest, sometimes it’s exhausting trying to keep up with it all while still holding onto the kind of childhood I want them to have. Because deep down, I want them to have a little 90s magic.

I want scraped knees and imagination. I want boredom that turns into creativity. I want laughter that isn’t for a camera and memories that don’t need a caption. But I also know I can’t raise them exactly the way I was raised because sadly the world isn’t the same.

So I find myself walking this tightrope between two generations.

Part of me is my mom… telling them to go outside, figure it out, be kids. And part of me is very much a 2026 mom… checking locations, setting screen limits and having conversations my mom didn’t have to think about until much later.

And here’s what I’ve realized…

My mom wasn’t a great mom because of the decade she raised me in.

She was a great mom because she loved me, trusted herself and showed up every single day.

That part hasn’t changed.

The tools look different. The challenges are louder. The expectations feel heavier, but at the core of it, motherhood is still motherhood.

It’s still late nights and early mornings. It’s still worrying if you’re doing enough (or doing too much). It’s still hoping that one day your kids look back and say, “She did her best… and it was exactly what I needed.”

So maybe I’m not raising my girls in the 90s, but if I can give them even a piece of what my mom gave me… freedom, love and a safe place to land, then I think I’m doing alright.

And if I catch myself sounding like her along the way? Honestly… I’ll take that as a win.

(Paige Gurgainers is a mother of three girls, and a digital journalist for Webster Parish Journal.)