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# Join the Campaign to Bring Internet Home to Mom
- URL: https://broadbandbreakfast.com/join-the-campaign-to-bring-internet-home-to-mom/
- Published: 2010-09-07T14:54:58.000Z
- Updated: 2024-02-06T15:52:48.000Z
- Description: Join the cause to bring home the internet to mom and the kids on the farm. BIHT’M (Bring Internet Home to Mom) leads the fight to reconnect a mother with her property, relations and the world around her. The time for seclusion is over. Let the inundation of over-stimulation in the information age co
- Author: Expert Opinion
- Tags: Expert Opinion, USF, Broadband's Impact, #with-siderail, National Broadband Plan, Amish, Anchor Institutions, Andrew Carnegie, energy conservation, libraries, online shopping, Petersburg Observer, rural broadband, What broadband means to me, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-02-01 10:23, #added-preview-divider

*Editor’s Note: BroadbandBreakfast.com periodically runs Expert Opinion commentary on a range of topics, including “What Broadband Means to Me.” This column begins an effort to underscore the reasons why high-speed internet access is so central to modern daily life.*

#### By Jennifer Clark

Join the cause to bring home the internet to mom and the kids on the farm. BIHT’M (Bring Internet Home to Mom) leads the fight to reconnect a mother with her property, relations and the world around her. The time for seclusion is over. Let the inundation of over-stimulation in the information age commence!

**Why mom needs the internet:**

**Economy**  
I need to check my bank account information at home. I do not want to do this over a less secure network in public locations and I want to do it at my convenience and on the fly if needed.  
  
**Natural Disasters**  
 *The Petersburg Observer* is not cutting it to explain about earthquakes and hurricanes. I do not watch nor trust the network news spin.

**Peace Talks**  
With family and old and new friends, I just do not have time to sit on the phone and neither do they. The hidden benefit to a no-e-mail lifestyle is that my children have learned the art of letter writing and the thrill of postage paid letters. However, *I* am way behind on my social net works.

**Education**  
Virtually all parent-teacher communication happens in the virtual world. All homework assignments are online or posted through e-mail. School notices and PTA functions come this way too. What’s more the kids need to use the internet to do homework assignments. I too have been known to google-up the scientific method or a list of historical dates to maintain the wonder and awe in the eyes of my children over their mother’s knowledge and wisdom. Please help, or I might *fail* 5th grade this time ’round.

**Community Activism**  
To get into a community one has to participate. Most of the planning for this participation happens *on*line. Now if you are not “on” you are out. Church callings, social groups, charity participation all function online. I am loosing my edge in affecting change in my community.

**Child Welfare**  
Frankly an hour on the internet is the cheapest babysitting I can get. After hearing the detailed accounts of the school day and the repeated worry over whether Johnny or Suzi “likes me anymore,” I have no guilt plopping my kids down in front of Star Fall or PBS Kids online. I justify that this is far better then an hour in front of the tv or DSi. Do it for the kids!

**New (to me) Innovations and Caring for Our Natural Resources**  
Moving to a farm has disarmed me of any notion that I am self-sufficient. I would like to become more so though. Step one: learn about tractors… I just don’t have a place to do that except to start my research about tractors or chickens or well water… online. From there I have a better idea of where I need to go for more in-depth information.

**End Hunger**  
…and dirty dishes for that matter. Perhaps more incidental but far more pleasing is the ability to look up a good recipe online. It’s just so dang handy. So too is the convenience of looking for service providers online. In fact, when I was looking in the local yellow pages for a plumber to hook up the new dishwasher the numbers I dialed were disconnected. The information was outdated even though it was a newly published phone book. In researching the same plumbers by name online I was able to find the accurate information and link to Angie’s list to see which had the best reputation. The dishwasher should be hooked up between 12 and 2 next Tuesday.

**Energy Conservation**  
Short of installing solar panels on the house roof and a windmill in the pasture we could do our part to conserve energy and save a lot of fossil fuel by getting me an internet connection. The gas I would save in chasing such a signal down at the local libraries or internet cafe could at least fuel the lawn tractor.

On Mondays I have to travel 15 miles one way to the library in the neighboring town because the one in our town is closed. On Fridays I need to travel 25 miles one way to the pastry shop down town because both libraries are closed. Tuesday through Thursday I can travel just 5 miles into town and as long as my lap top in fully charged I can get two hours of internet time. I am limited in my time only because our local library, though generously built by the Carnegie family nearly 100 years ago, does not house the three prong outlets I need to keep my lap top charged. I would look up what those three-prong out lets are really called but I don’t have an internet connection.

All this is true, but also I could save so much of my own energy by doing more of my family shopping online too.

The flip side is that I do read more books now. In fact, I picked up a great little book about the Amish. I was disconcerted to learn, however, that even they have the internet.

*Jennifer Clark is a full-time mother of two children, and has previously written for BroadbandBreakfast.com. She brings a keen understanding of community infrastructure together with a background in congressional politics and community issues. She has a Master’s in Education.*