By Fatima Hassan

In a small bungalow in humid Karachi, Zainab balances her toddler on one hip while scrolling through the buzzing WhatsApp school group on her phone. She had logged on hoping to find the updated weekly reading list. Instead, dozens of messages swarmed her screen. One parent had asked whether the school was changing the timing of the assembly that week. But as she swiped upward, the thread had spiraled into confusion; families insisting they had heard different things, speculating about new rules, and forwarding voice notes from other parents, each claiming to have ‘heard from someone at the school.’

“It’s like Chinese whispers,” Zainab would later say, though in this version of the game, the stakes feel higher. For mothers already carrying the mental load of childcare, household management, and navigating complex school systems, digital confusion is not harmless. It piles into an already overcrowded day, demanding attention, anxiety, and time.

Across Pakistan, scenes like this have become ordinary. The caregiving mother, already overworked, underslept, and operating without reliable support systems, now finds her phone transformed into an extension of her labor. From WhatsApp school groups and neighborhood mum chats to tele-health consultations, Instagram parenting advice accounts, and YouTube health tutorials, urban and semi-urban Pakistani mothers are increasingly relying on digital platforms to make caregiving manageable.

But with this convenience comes a set of invisible burdens: digital harassment, misinformation that can dangerously shape health decisions, the quiet surveillance of women’s device use at home, online comparison culture, data privacy risks, and a growing digital fatigue that many mothers don’t yet know how to name.

The stories of many such mothers reveal a profound truth: Pakistan’s digital ecosystem was not designed with caregiving women in mind. And as the state pushes toward a vision of ‘Digital Pakistan’, mothers remain positioned at the intersection of empowerment and vulnerability.

The Rise of the Digital Mother

In many Pakistani households, motherhood is increasingly mediated through screens. Noreen described her day as ‘a series of pings’. WhatsApp groups for school, daycare, Quran class, the neighborhood, the cousins, the mothers support circle, plus YouTube videos on infant nutrition, Google searches about fevers, and the constant scroll of Instagram mom influencers selling everything from Montessori play kits to ‘gentle parenting hacks.’

For new mothers, this digital immersion is almost inevitable. Pakistan’s school systems have embraced WhatsApp as the default communication channel. Pediatricians frequently consult over voice notes. Grandmothers send forwarded remedies from TikTok. Mothers exchange advice in group chats that, while comforting at times, can become chaotic and overwhelming.

According to PTA’s most recent gender-disaggregated internet-use data, only 38% of women in Pakistan have regular internet access, compared to 64% of men, a staggering gender gap that shapes who gets to navigate digital life independently and who must rely on shared devices or censored access. According to DRF’s 2023 report, women in Pakistan face high levels of device exclusion and a lack of control over their phones.

And yet, despite these barriers, Pakistani mothers are among the most active digital caregivers. UN development agency reports, such as UNDP’s report on Digitalisation and Women in Pakistan shows that many women in Pakistan increasingly turn to digital tools for health information and children’s education, even as they continue to face significant barriers to access, affordability and digital autonomy.

This contradiction forms the heart of digital motherhood in Pakistan. Women are expected to manage child-related responsibilities digitally, but they are not given the autonomy, privacy, or safe access to fully benefit from these systems.

School Groups: Connection, Chaos, and the Mental Load

Every mother interviewed for this story mentioned WhatsApp school groups as both a blessing and a source of daily stress.

In some cases, the groups offer real value. When Zainab’s daughter fell sick, she used the class WhatsApp group to ask for missed homework. Another mother immediately sent photos of the workbook pages. In a country where schools often give five printed notices for the same instruction, WhatsApp can sometimes provide the clarity that the official channels lack.

But the overwhelming pattern, mothers say, is noise.

In Karachi, Purnia described days when the school group crossed 250 messages by noon. A question about a uniform detail could trigger a flurry of contradictory answers. A parent sharing an unofficial instruction would escalate into panic. Voice notes, sometimes from other mothers, sometimes forwarded from ‘someone’s cousin whose relative knows the principal’, introduced even more confusion.

One semi-urban mother from Sheikhupura, Nazia recounted how a discussion about a school event devolved into a debate about whether a rumor was real. “By the time the teacher finally replied, everyone had already argued based on misinformation,” she explained.

This dynamic reflects in DRF’s findings that women face a deep gender digital divide shaped by care-giving roles . The constant checking, clarifying, and responding adds to the cognitive load that mothers carry.

And because Pakistani schools increasingly expect mothers, not fathers, to manage these digital channels, the burden rarely distributes evenly.

When Digital Advice Turns Dangerous

Digital motherhood is not just overwhelming. At times, it becomes frightening.

In a neighborhood WhatsApp group in Karachi, a mother posted that her infant had developed a high fever and she didn’t know what to do. Several mothers chimed in with sympathy. But one mother confidently responded that she should nebulize her infant with steroids she happened to have at home. Steroids are highly controlled medication that requires strict medical supervision.

Before the advice could escalate, another participant in the group, a pediatrician, firmly intervened. She warned the mother against using steroids and urged her to see a doctor immediately. The original mother later informed that she had not realized how risky the suggestion was.

This incident is not isolated. JMIR’s research found that mothers in South Asia frequently rely on informal digital health advice due to limited access to affordable medical care or reliable information. DRF’s reports highlight that women are often targeted with misinformation through WhatsApp forwards, especially related to children’s health, vaccines, and home remedies.

For Pakistani mothers who lack access to verified medical information, and who often consult digital sources late at night when clinics are closed, the risk of acting on incorrect or harmful advice is real.

Digital-health practitioners confirmed this trend. Dr Sagheer Ahmed, a pediatrician, neonatologist and digital health practitioner, explained that many mothers message him after trying “WhatsApp cures” that worsen symptoms. He described mothers who administer antibiotics without prescriptions, follow incorrect dosing guidelines from Facebook posts, or panic after reading unverified articles.

The problem isn’t that mothers are uninformed. It’s that digital platforms amplify noise faster than facts.

The Promise and Pressure of Online Support Communities

For many mothers, the internet is the only space where they can be vulnerable.

Mothers interviewed described online support groups as ‘lifesaving,’ ‘comforting,’ and ‘a place where someone finally understands.’ In cities where families are often nuclear, and in-laws may not live nearby, digital mothering communities can provide a sense of solidarity. Mothers described sharing breastfeeding struggles, postpartum depression symptoms, toddler tantrums, or exhaustion; topics they felt uncomfortable discussing with family.

But these support spaces can also create new forms of pressure.

“Everyone’s life looks perfect online.”
 This sentiment echoed across all the mothering experiences gathered for this article.

UNESCO’s analysis of gender and digital transformation highlights how social norms, including expectations around women’s caregiving roles, shape how women access and use digital platforms.

On Instagram, mothers follow influencers who post routines with immaculate kitchens, Montessori playrooms, and unbroken sleep schedules. Many mothers admitted to feeling inadequate in comparison. This pressure trickles into real life, creating what researchers call ‘parental algorithmic imaginary’: the sense that the algorithm is constantly serving content that reminds mothers of what they should be doing, buying, preparing, or performing.

For Nayab, Instagram became a source of constant anxiety. “Every reel I saw was about sensory play, organic food, gentle parenting. It made me feel like I was failing,” she said. She eventually unfollowed the accounts, but the imprint of those expectations lingered.

Digital empowerment, in this context, becomes intertwined with digital perfectionism.

Gendered Access, Shared Devices, and Domestic Surveillance

Digital access in Pakistan is deeply gendered, shaped by socio-economic status, education, and family dynamics.

In semi-urban and working-class households, mothers often use shared phones. Several mothers interviewed mentioned having restricted access to apps because their husbands did not want their data misused or did not trust women’s digital interactions. Others described situations where family members regularly checked their messages or controlled their online interactions.

DRF’s research shows that many Pakistani women experience family-imposed restrictions, disapproval and monitoring of their digital activity, which significantly shapes how and when they can access the internet.

This impacts how mothers seek information. If a woman can only use her phone when her husband is home, she cannot consult a pediatrician discreetly late at night. If she knows her messages are being checked, she may hesitate to share her struggles with postpartum depression in a support group.

Digital safety is not simply about avoiding online harassment; it’s about navigating the digital gaze within the home.

And yet, in spite of these limitations, mothers push through. They adapt. They create filters of trust. They find safer spaces.

Digital Fatigue: The Silent Epidemic

Perhaps the most unspoken part of digital motherhood is the exhaustion it generates.

Several mothers admitted to feeling ‘always available’ and ‘never mentally switched off’. The constant notifications, health reminders, school messages, parenting tips, replies from relatives abroad, Instagram parenting reels, and baby milestone comparisons create a sense of endless mental multitasking.

Ms Zehra, a psychologist, has described mothers who develop decision fatigue from juggling contradictory advice. She said mothers often reach digital health practitioners when they are already overwhelmed, unable to distinguish between credible information and digital noise.

UNESCO research and U.N. regional research suggest that gender norms constrain women’s digital use. Cultural expectations around caregiving, family roles, and social relationships limit how freely women can engage online, contributing to the stress and inequality.

Navigating Socio-Economic Disparities

Urban middle-class mothers may face digital overload, but working-class and semi-urban mothers encounter a different challenge - digital exclusion.

In interviews, several women described rationing their mobile data so they could watch a single pediatrician’s video at night. Others said they avoided engaging in school groups because they feared exhausting their prepaid data on irrelevant chatter.

According to GSMA’s report, women in low-income households in Pakistan have far lower mobile and internet access than women in higher-income households, reflecting the deep economic and gender disparities in digital inclusion.

This creates an uneven digital landscape:

• Middle-class mothers are overwhelmed.
• Working-class mothers are under-equipped.
• Both groups are underserved.

Mothers who share devices, often with multiple family members, also face privacy risks. One semi-urban mother, Ambar, said her teenage brother often borrowed the phone. She constantly feared he would accidentally open her postpartum support group messages.

In rural Pakistan, studies show that women’s access to technology is constrained by limited literacy, shared or male-controlled devices and a lack of infrastructure, which means many can only use digital tools for basic communication and health-related information making it harder to navigate apps (often in English) and increasing vulnerability to misinformation.

In this context, “Digital Pakistan” becomes a geography divided by class and gender, where access does not equal empowerment.

The Double-Edged Promise of Tele-Health

Tele-health has quietly revolutionized maternal care in Pakistan.

Every mother interviewed had used WhatsApp to consult a doctor. In cities where doctor appointments involve long waits, expensive fees, and logistical hurdles, digital consultations offer a lifeline.

But tele-health, too, sits on uneven ground.

Practitioners described cases where mothers sent blurry photos of rashes, unclear voice notes about symptoms, or incomplete histories because they didn’t know how to articulate their concerns digitally or feared judgment in the group.

The same digital channels that make medical care accessible also risk normalizing casual or incomplete consultations.

Practitioners have stressed that digital care should complement, not replace, in-person visits but many mothers rely on it heavily due to affordability and convenience.

And misinformation thrives in these gaps: when mothers cannot distinguish between a certified pediatrician on YouTube and an influencer recommending home remedies, digital health becomes a gamble.

Mothers as Digital Navigators of a Flawed System

Through all these narratives, from Chinese-whisper WhatsApp groups to dangerous medical advice threads, a clear pattern emerges: mothers are navigating a digital ecosystem not designed for them.

DRF’s research highlights that women in Pakistan enter digital spaces shaped by patriarchal norms, low digital literacy, and domestic surveillance, yet are expected to manage children’s education, social connections, and caregiving responsibilities online.

UNESCO’s South Asia findings echo this: women are digital users, not digital decision-makers.

Pakistan’s digital infrastructure, from school communication systems to health platforms, relies on mothers without equipping them. Mothers interviewed often felt they had no choice but to adapt, absorb the pressure, and make do.

But many expressed the desire for:

• Better-designed school communication systems
• Verified health information channels
• Digital literacy programs for mothers
• Privacy protections for women using shared devices
• Safe online communities moderated by professionals
• Local language content that is accurate and accessible

Mothers do not reject technology. They reject the burdens it places on them without support.

What True Digital Inclusion Could Look Like

If Pakistan’s digital future is to be inclusive, it must center caregiving women.

Digital Rights are not abstract - they shape intimate daily experiences. A mother’s ability to privately message a doctor, to ask questions without surveillance, to use apps safely, or to protect her child’s images online, is part of her fundamental right to autonomy and security.

Telecom policy, app design, school practices, and digital-literacy programs must reflect the lived realities of women, not just those with high-end smartphones, but those with limited data, shared devices, or low literacy.

A meaningful vision for Digital Pakistan must understand that women are not passive recipients of technology but active navigators of complex, often hostile digital terrains.

True digital empowerment would require:

• Ethical design that recognizes women’s privacy needs
• Localized digital-literacy programs targeting mothers
• Official channels that reduce misinformation
• Moderated support spaces for new mothers
• Policy safeguards that protect women from household surveillance
• Data privacy laws that protect children’s information
• Affordable access for low-income households

Because when mothers are digitally empowered, entire families benefit. When mothers are safe online, children grow up safer. When mothers have autonomy, the country moves closer to actual digital inclusion.

Conclusion: The Unseen Digital Labor of Motherhood

In the end, the story of digital motherhood in Pakistan is one of resilience shaped by inequity.

Mothers have built support systems from scratch, learned new digital habits, navigated misinformation, and carried the emotional weight of online communities, all while raising children in an increasingly uncertain world.

They have done this not because technology is perfect, but because they have had no choice.

If Pakistan truly wants a digital future where women thrive, it must begin by listening to these mothers, the ones piecing together clarity from chaotic group chats, filtering through dubious advice at midnight, and scrolling through their exhaustion to find help in the only spaces available to them.