ABSTRACT
The lived experiences of children around the world are evolving in the face of urbanisation, industrialisation and globalisation, all of which have had a signifi cant impact on family structures, parenting, childhood and adolescence. In many urban societies, mobile media and cloud computing that off er always-on, always-available information and communication services are increasingly pervasive. Percolating through all strata of society, these services shape the communication practices and media consumption habits of families, infl uencing how parents guide their children’s media use, and how parents and children connect with one another. In this paper, I argue that the advent of pervasive, ubiquitous media has engendered the practice of “transcendent parenting” which goes beyond traditional, physical concepts of parenting, to incorporate virtual and online parenting and how these all intersect. In this emergent form of parenting, parents must transcend: (i) every media consumption environment that the child may enter; (ii) their children’s offl ine and online social interaction milieu; and (iii) “timeless time” as experienced in the apparent ceaselessness of parenting duties.
