Issue link: http://hvparent.uberflip.com/i/300258
6 Hudson Valley Parent n May 2014 Publisher TERRIE GOLDSTEIN tgoldstein@excitingread.com Editor KATY WEBER kweber@excitingread.com Media Advisors FELICE FEINBERG ffeinberg@excitingread.com KIMBERLY MAYER kmayer@excitingread.com ROANNE PATTERSON rpatterson@excitingread.com Executive Assistant to the Publisher MERLYN AKHTAR makhtar@excitingread.com Administrative Assistant ALLYSON KIRSTEIN akirstein@excitingread.com Social Media Coordinators ERIN JOHNSON GLORIA DARMANIN Web Ad Designer LESLIE CORTES Layout & Design ENGLE PRINTING also publishers of MY TripPlanner.com family MY TripPlanner.com family baby The HUDSON VALLEY G U I D E Hudson Valley Parent is published monthly by: The Professional Image Marketing & Public Relations Inc. 174 South Street • Newburgh, NY 12550 Phone: 845-562-3606 • Fax: 845-562-3681 hvparent.com This publication is copyrighted by the publisher. Reproduction without written permission of the publisher is prohibited. Hudson Valley Parent welcomes submissions, although we cannot accept responsibility for work submitted nor guarantee publication. A MEMBER OF B oy did I feel old as I read through the first issues of Hudson Valley Parent magazine from 1994. I was instantly struck by how dated they felt. I mean, the mid-90s wasn't really that long ago, right? I immediately noticed that advertisements for businesses only included phone numbers and mail- ing addresses — no emails or websites. Was there ever really a time when we'd just call up business- es, or (gasp) send them snail mail? The Internet has so overwhelm- ingly changed parenting, not only in the way we communicate with each other, but the speed and convenience with which we find information about our children and ourselves. Nowadays, with smart phones and the web literally at our finger- tips wherever we go, we google, we diagnose, analyze, compare and contrast before we've even consulted with our pediatricians. We upload photos of our kids' rashes, ask other parents in online forums if it's "nor- mal," share advice with strangers, and eventually arrive at the doc- tor's office already stressed out and armed with a long list of homespun ideas as to what's really the matter. We have access to more informa- tion than any generation of parents before us, but is that necessarily a good thing? We are exposed to more opinions, more judgment, and more seemingly perfect parenting tech- niques, often leaving us feeling inad- equate as parents and second-guess- ing our instincts. We also worry about screen time for our kids — how much is too much and what are the long-term rami- fications? And the cyber universe only serves to heighten our anxiety with countless studies that either support or refute every possible parenting theory. But it's not all doom and gloom. The informa- tion highway may have complicated our lives as parents, but it has also opened our minds to the global community in ways never before seen. We've educated ourselves about products, food, safety, tolerance — the list is endless. We are now ex- posed to the entire world's collective experience in raising children, and that's an amazing (if overwhelming) development. I sincerely hope you enjoy this anniversary issue as we take a look back at how parenting in the Hud- son Valley has changed over the last two decades. Our writers examine issues like education, leisure time, and feeding our children. We also look at technology and the new gen- eration of 'digitods.' Reading the early issues of Hud- son Valley Parent magazine left me feeling like it was time to simplify my life as a parent — put down the phone, get outside, enjoy my kids and trust my instincts. I want to shut out the noise of the Internet. I want to write more letters, read more books, and generally just slow down. On the other hand, I chuckled when I spotted an article about sur- viving car trips with a portable CD player and thanked my lucky stars that we now have iPads and DVD players. Onward and upward! There's an app for that KATY WEBER Editor's Journal