Can 90s-style parenting recapture the childhood freedom of the last pre-digital era?

The Globe and Mail · Travis Persaud · 2026-11-06 14:00 UTC

There’s a movement among some millennial and Gen Z parents to bring analog experiences back into the childhood experience

Daya Fruhbrodt remembers the moment that changed how she parented.

Her daughter, then four years old, was eating while she and her husband both sat nearby on their phones. The little girl began pretending to use a phone, too.

“It honestly broke my heart a little bit,” says Fruhbrodt, a Calgary-based behavioural therapist who works with children on the spectrum. “I thought, ‘What are we teaching our daughter?’”

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