Thank you Kevin for writing something that refuses both pile-on culture and moral escape hatches. This felt honest without being indulgent, and reflective without being preachy. What resonated deeply is your framing of phones as time machines that only go backward. That metaphor captures something profound about memory, regret, and attention.
One thought your essay sparked is that play isn’t the opposite of productivity. It’s a different metric of contribution. Children don’t need us to produce outcomes; they need us to co-create moments. That may be one of the few spaces left where worth isn’t measured, but felt.
My kids got two new kitchens - an IKEA one inside and a mud kitchen outside. It’s amazing and a lot, which is just about perfectly a sum up of parenting
Brilliant framing through the scoreboard metaphor. The idea that we're measuring sucess with the wrong metrics explains so much about why modern dads feel trapped between old expectations and new realities. I've noticed in my own life how easy it is to slip into productivity mode even during playtime, treating every moment as something to optimize rather than experience. The George Bailey lens flips it completely.
Thank you Kevin for writing something that refuses both pile-on culture and moral escape hatches. This felt honest without being indulgent, and reflective without being preachy. What resonated deeply is your framing of phones as time machines that only go backward. That metaphor captures something profound about memory, regret, and attention.
One thought your essay sparked is that play isn’t the opposite of productivity. It’s a different metric of contribution. Children don’t need us to produce outcomes; they need us to co-create moments. That may be one of the few spaces left where worth isn’t measured, but felt.
My kids got two new kitchens - an IKEA one inside and a mud kitchen outside. It’s amazing and a lot, which is just about perfectly a sum up of parenting
“A reminder yet again to never tweet” hahaha
You now have three kitchens. I'm sorry for your loss.
Actually 4. A friend gave us their old one. It’s a mini kitchen
Brilliant framing through the scoreboard metaphor. The idea that we're measuring sucess with the wrong metrics explains so much about why modern dads feel trapped between old expectations and new realities. I've noticed in my own life how easy it is to slip into productivity mode even during playtime, treating every moment as something to optimize rather than experience. The George Bailey lens flips it completely.
The movie is 80 years old and feels like it could have been written yesterday.