I Thought I Was Going to Hack Parenting

One of the things I was most excited about when I quit my job was having more time with my kids.

For most of their lives, I’ve been working. When I started at the church, my oldest was four and my youngest was still in the egg phase of IVF. Before that, I spent years trying to have kids through fertility treatments, adoption classes, paperwork and waiting.

So when I suddenly had a summer without a job, I thought: This is it. I’m going to figure this parenting thing out.

First order of business: Teen tracking system.

My thirteen-year-old had been asking for a smartphone for no less than 10 years, and I had resisted because I’ve read enough about kids and phones to know that giving him one would basically destroy his brain, his childhood and possibly Western civilization.

But Fun-employed Sheila had time to solve this.

I found an old iPhone. It was perfect. He could text his friends. I could reach him. He could have some independence without me handing him a $1,000 dopamine machine.

And the battery lasts about twenty minutes.

At first, I thought this was genius. I had accidentally invented parental controls. No complicated Screen Time settings (not true). No arguing about limits (also not true). Eventually the phone just dies (factual).

Parent hack!

Except the GPS also stops working when the phone dies. He can’t call me when the phone dies. I can’t call him when the phone dies. And apparently a phone isn’t particularly useful when its primary feature is turning itself off. What happened to the olden days when kids just checked in eventually? (we did that, it worked… sort of… sometimes)

This is becoming a pattern.

I thought having more time would finally give me a chance to figure out parenting. Instead, I’m discovering that parenting may be one of those things I can’t optimize my way through.

Sometimes the cheap fish turns into a three-week medical research project.

Sometimes the old phone is just an old phone.

And somehow, against all odds, the fish is still alive and the old phone + battery pack is doing it’s job good enough.

So I’m calling the summer a win.

— Sheila