AI is changing motherhood for the worse

Artificial intelligence is making parenting more efficient while also increasing the anxiety of mothers. | Bloomberg

Oct 30, 2026

Recent books and studies have begun to highlight the risks that AI poses to children. This is a good thing. Maybe we’re collectively realizing that we shouldn’t wait a decade after a new technology emerges — as we did with social media — before sounding the alarm.

But kids aren’t the only ones affected by artificial intelligence. Mothers are, too.

The vast majority of parents — 81% — use AI for parenting support. I’m one of them. But as much as I appreciate AI managing my grocery list, I worry it could make parenting harder. When I asked Google’s Gemini how AI might go about dismantling American motherhood, its answer rang eerily true: It warned that AI could encourage “hyperindividualized isolation,” intensify perfectionism and make every parenting decision seem to carry a risk of “permanent, catastrophic consequences.”

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