Independence Dividends

April 12th, 2023
kids
Our oldest is in third grade, and sings in the school chorus. It's after school on Wednesdays, which is fine. Except on half-day Wednesdays it's before school, which is less fine. Instead of needing to be to school at 8am she needs to be there at 7:15. She really likes chorus, and feels strongly that it's worth waking up for, but as the one getting up early with her, the tradeoff feels a bit different to me.

This morning, for the first time, when my alarm went off she was already at school. We had talked about how I thought she was ready to do this, and how I really didn't want to be waking up early when she didn't need me, and we agreed she would handle it. Which she did well! When I saw her briefly at school, dropping the middle child, she was very proud of herself.

Cultivating independence can be more work in the moment, but it's really great when the investment pays dividends.

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, mastodon, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Male Sexuality

Testosterone-driven sexuality is different from estrogen-driven sexuality.

via Thing of Things August 8, 2025

The anti-fragile culture

I wrote a post about organizational culture!.

via Home August 6, 2025

Retrospective on life tracking and effectiveness systems

I’ve been doing life tracking for around 10 years, and this post is looking back at some things I learned from the data (since my previous retrospective in 2017). Highlights include what I get out of the Oura ring, correlations between sleep and deep work…

via Victoria Krakovna July 4, 2025

more     (via openring)