As parents, we are assailed by injunctions to protect our children, to engage with them creatively, athletically and intellectually, to feed them nutritious food and make them floss their teeth. Even when not being given direct advice, we listen out, comparing ourselves with others, wondering what we’re getting right or wrong. Usually, I mind the interference, but during the first COVID-19 lockdown I minded it even more when the voices of teachers and other parents stopped. I found that I didn’t want to be left to look after my children without the input of others, so I listened even harder to guides and authorities online, and on the airwaves, all of whom seemed to be doubling down on their sense that they alone had the right vision of childcare ready to dispense. And so, a few weeks into ‘home schooling’ – a wildly optimistic description of the 10-minute chunks of learning I could persuade my son to do without formal, primary school education structures to aid us – I found myself turning to the search engine instead.
