Amanda Hess exposes tech’s role in motherhood in 'Second Life'

In Second Life, Amanda Hess uncovers the unsettling grip of digital culture on pregnancy, parenting, and identity in the internet age.

Illustration by Febrina Tiara

By Anna Fadiah and Hayu Andini

Amanda Hess’s Second Life is not simply a memoir of early motherhood—it is a sharp, unflinching social critique of how the digital world entangles itself in the most intimate and vulnerable corners of modern life. In Second Life, Amanda Hess chronicles her journey into motherhood against the backdrop of algorithmic marketing, intrusive apps, and the cultural pressures of digital performance. The book begins with a moment of transformation: not just Hess’s pregnancy, but the sudden, almost surreal shift in her digital environment. “It took forty-eight hours for the brands to find me,” she writes.

For a millennial used to the casual clutter of online content—what she aptly calls “millennial slop”—the abrupt pivot toward pregnancy-centered advertising felt both invasive and bizarrely predictive. From the moment she fed her pregnancy into a menstrual tracking app, the internet pounced. Brands, apps, influencers, and content marketers recalibrated her entire digital life, calling her “mama” before she even shared the news with her family.

This moment is more than anecdotal. It encapsulates the central argument of Second Life: that modern parenting does not begin with birth, or even with conception, but with data. In fact, Amanda Hess’s Second Life deftly argues that pregnancy and parenthood have become inextricably linked to a technological ecosystem built to profit from fear and uncertainty.

Technology as the new midwife

The author’s relationship with her menstrual tracking app is one of the first signs that bodily autonomy and digital dependence have begun to merge. “I could just outsource it to my phone,” Hess notes with self-aware irony. The app would warn her of hormonal swings, suggest fertile days, and, crucially, become her first confidante once a pregnancy test turned positive.

What follows is a rapid immersion into an online universe dominated by momfluencers, prenatal products, and social validation loops. Hess finds herself both repelled and seduced by this world, where identity, commerce, and motherhood blur into a glossy performance of maternal virtue.

Unlike earlier generations who sought information in books or from family, today’s expectant mothers are bombarded with sponsored content, dubious advice, and high-tech parenting gadgets. Amanda Hess’s Second Life makes clear that pregnancy has become a commercial event, where every anxiety is a market opportunity, and every choice is scrutinized through algorithmic suggestion.

Between anxiety and advertising

Amanda Hess’s journey is marked by deep personal challenges that reflect broader cultural shifts. Seven months into her pregnancy, a routine scan reveals troubling possibilities. What follows is a harrowing emotional odyssey through genetic testing, misinformation, and digital panic. “Baby cancer, baby cancer, baby cancer,” repeats her phone, its touchscreen confused by raindrops and tears. This moment—described with poetic clarity—is emblematic of the emotional toll of parenting in an age of instant information and relentless data.

Where past generations may have had to wait days for test results and opinions, Amanda Hess’s Second Life shows how immediacy can be as destructive as it is empowering. Each new test brings hope or devastation, and her phone acts as both companion and tormentor, cycling her through emotions faster than her body can process them.

Hess’s child is eventually born with a visible condition. Her reflections on how people react—awkward silences, strained glances—are raw, empathetic, and courageous. These passages showcase the best of Second Life, where the personal becomes universal, and the critique of society is anchored in lived experience.

Ideology and identity collide

Amanda Hess is unapologetically political. A New York Times critic with liberal views, she is candid about her position on issues like abortion, gender roles, and race. Yet one of the most compelling aspects of Second Life is how motherhood challenges her ideological framework. Early in the book, she insists that a fetus is “not a person.” Later, as she confronts the implications of genetic testing and the potential erasure of children like her own, she wrestles with moral contradictions that are difficult to ignore.

In these moments, Second Life transcends its genre. It becomes not just a memoir or a cultural critique, but a philosophical meditation on choice, value, and love in the digital era. Amanda Hess does not offer easy answers, but her willingness to explore discomfort makes Second Life a uniquely honest contribution to discussions about modern motherhood.

A second life, off the grid?

Not all of Second Life is heavy. Hess is a witty, perceptive writer, capable of turning even mundane experiences into sharp insights. She describes absurd products—belly masks, fetal keepsake videos, digital bassinets—with bemused detachment. These moments are funny, but also serve as commentary on how deeply consumerism has colonized parenting.

Older readers may find themselves shocked by the extent of digital surveillance that today’s parents face. Amanda Hess’s Second Life reminds us that nothing is private—not pregnancy, not grief, not joy. Her account of using a robot bassinet that graphs sleep data or navigating a Reddit thread on prenatal supplements shows that even nighttime feedings and body changes have become sites of public discourse and data mining.

Political and personal costs of surveillance parenting

The subtitle of Second Life—“Having a Child in the Digital Age”—underscores the book’s broader relevance. Amanda Hess’s experience may be filtered through her specific social and political lens, but her insights resonate far beyond her demographic. At its core, Second Life is a warning about the erosion of boundaries. What begins as a convenience—a helpful app, a curated product list—can quickly become an architecture of control.

As she moves into her second pregnancy, Hess steps back slightly from the hyper-documentation of her first. The birth of her second child takes place off-stage, a deliberate omission that suggests a quiet rebellion against the all-seeing eye of the digital parenting industry. In this subtle act, she reclaims a sliver of privacy and autonomy—an effort to carve out a genuine “second life” away from screens.

A must-read for parents navigating modern motherhood

Amanda Hess’s Second Life is not just a book about becoming a mother. It’s about becoming a person again after being algorithmically reduced to a target demographic. For readers who are parents, especially those raising children in an online-first society, it is essential reading. For everyone else, it is a compelling examination of how surveillance, capitalism, and identity intersect in the most personal moments of life.

Above all, Second Life is a story of love, confusion, resilience, and resistance. Amanda Hess has written something rare: a book that is both timely and timeless. Her Second Life may be mediated by technology, but its message is profoundly human.