Julie Cole, co-founder of Mabel?s Labels, is the mother of six kids. But her experience raising them was pretty different from your experience raising yours. That?s because her children were born between 1999 and 2009?a time when the internet, while it existed, wasn?t the vast place it is today.  My own four kids were born between 1991 and 2002, when the internet was even more of a baby.
?I can?t say whether parenting was better or worse before the internet, but it was certainly different,? says Cole. She and I took a walk down memory lane to remember exactly what it was like raising babies without being able to go online.
1. Everyone had a shelf full of books and magazines about parenting 
Just as my mom relied on Dr. Spock?s famous book for parenting advice, my generation all owned a physical copy of What To Expect When You?re Expecting. We also subscribed to one or all of the many parenting print magazines available to us (there were tons back then, including Today’s Parent) and we picked up all the brochures from the doctor?s office. There was no Google, no WebMD, no pregnancy apps, no parenting Instagram accounts. 2. All our health and medical advice came from a doctor
While parents today still of course have in-person doctor visits for their babies and kids, when I was parenting young kids, all my medical information came from that one doctor. We saved up our questions (we wrote them down on a piece of paper, which I suppose feels old-fashioned in these days o...