Jon Bellion, Struggling Parents & What if this is the whole point?

3 Things I'm Loving, Reading, Watching or Doing

1. Why Parents Struggle in the World’s Richest Country

According to this article, America is the land of opportunity, but not always a great place to raise kids. With no guaranteed paid parental leave, long work hours, and a culture obsessed with achievement, parents here often feel overworked, anxious, and unsupported.

2. Reimagining School in the Age of AI

This Noema piece explores how AI could reshape education from personalized, mastery-based learning to teachers focusing more on mentorship than grading (sort of like the Two-Hour Learning model I shared a few weeks ago). Big potential, but also risks of surveillance, inequity, and losing the value of shared learning.

3. Jon Bellion’s Father Figure

A new artist to me (though he’s been around a decade). I’m really enjoying his latest album, Father Figure, which features collabs with Pharrell and Luke Combs.

2 Quotes Worth Pondering

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” – Socrates

1 Big Dad Idea

What If This Is the Whole Point?

I don’t normally buy into the latest social media trends, but I do dig the recent “almost forgot this is the whole point” movement. These clips usually feature someone realizing that the current moment (not some future achievement) is the actual purpose. Add a glorious mountain shot, a steaming cup of coffee, some soft music, and it suddenly it all clicks.

For us parents, maybe this is just a reframe of the old line: “Enjoy your kids while they’re young. These years go by quickly.” We get the sentiment, but in those seasons when you’re barely keeping your head above water, it can feel like more pressure. Almost like: “Well, great. Not only am I drowning, but I’m failing because I’m not enjoying the drowning."

Here’s what I’ve learned: you’re not going to love every moment. You’re not going to be overflowing with gratitude every day. However, if this — the tears and the laughter, the exhaustion and that first sip of coffee, the messy house and the bedtime snuggles — is the whole point, then it becomes a better way to live. It’s a package deal. It’s not just hoping for things to “get better” or waiting for the kids move out. The joy and the pain together are the point.

And when we can pause to savor the lovely moments, it gets even better. So lately I’ve been practicing noticing them. Yesterday I got a wee teary-eyed watching a dad holding hands with his four-year-old on a walk. I used to love doing that. And last week, in the middle of a beach football game with my kids, I ran over to my wife, kissed her, and said, “Does it get any better than this?” (To be fair, I had also just smoked one of my kids for a touchdown.)

Maybe the whole point is right in front of us.