Why do parents pretend that it’s hard to monitor what their children are doing online? I’m not just asking for a friend, I’m asking for myself, and for everyone else who knows that it’s not the job of the connected world to babysit your kids.

It’s not like parents have limited time or attention. We live in a world where it’s easier to be a housemaker than it’s ever been, due to the sheer number of appliances that trivialize tasks that used to take all day.

You no longer have to spend all day dragging clothing up and down a washboard, then hanging clothes out in the sun to dry. You can put them in a washer and then a dryer, then you can just walk off as they do what they do, then put the clothes away when they’re done.

People today don’t even seem to know what a washboard even is, to the point that both instances of the word in this article could’ve been replaced by spellcheck.

You’re not going to spend hours washing dishes, either. Automatic dishwashers are a thing. You just put dishes in them with some detergent, then let them run.

Vacuum cleaners themselves are already a luxury of the modern age, but now we have robots that do the job for you. Just tell them to get started from an app on your phone, then let them do their thing. You might not even have to be home as it happens.

There’s more. But if your parents and grandparents can raise children without these things, what makes matters more difficult for you in this age of climate control?

So basically, a stay-at-home parent has all day, every day, to monitor their child’s online activity like a hawk. There’s no excuse not to, certainly not because they were distracted by soap operas or something similarly asinine.

But wait, it actually gets easier! In addition to doing your job as a parent and actually monitoring what your children are doing on the tablet or whatever, there’s actually software which restricts how children can use these devices, some of which can be trivially activated on the User Interface level.

And if you know how, you can actually install software that makes it easier to monitor them. You may disagree with keyloggers on principle, but if it’s used by a parent to monitor their child’s online activity as a supplement to being present as they use their devices, then it’s use is justifiable.

To get right down to it, for a parent to do their job as a parent is easier than it’s ever been, eliminating any excuse for being lazy in this regard.

It’s not the job of the internet to babysit your children. If we did, they’d probably turn out like us. Think about whether that’s what you want.