This past father's day, June 21, 2026, I had a choice to make. I would play pickleball from 9 am to 12 noon at an indoor club called Flyte, 30 minutes north. Or I can take my kids 30 minutes south to Bay Club Redwood Shores for swimming and tennis and pickleball lessons.
For over a year now, I take them every Sunday for five to six hours when we are in town. It has become a tradition. I'm not very happy there, because I'm the one who studies, I don't play. And anyone who has tried to teach their toddler a difficult skill knows how much patience it takes. However, it is still rewarding to teach them and watch them improve a little.
So Father's Day introduced a classic fork in the road.
On the other hand, you can look at Father's Day as a day to take a break from childcare so that dad can do his own thing. On the other hand, you can consider it as a day to spend more time with children, as they are the most important people in the world.
The Choice Was Bright
Finally, I told the organizer of the northern pickleball tournament that I couldn't make it. I felt very guilty about leaving the children behind. When I play, we usually go from 7am – 9am to a nearby park. So I loaded them around 10:45am and didn't get home until 7:15pm.
We played pickleball for an hour, swam for about an hour and a half, hit the hot tub and water park for another hour, read books, had lunch, visited a Tesla dealer, drove RC cars for an hour, then had dinner.
It was the best Father's Day I could have asked for. Something that would have made it better if my wife had joined. But he started working on our new book, Your Kids Will Be OKand find time to rest, as he spends every evening doing homework with the children.
Almost a perfect day. Then Monday happened.
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The Next Day The Meeting Was Moving
Monday brought back that familiar feeling of father guilt. But this time, I didn't do anything about it.
We had registered children for the whole week of summer school. I left my wife at the nursery where she was looking after her, then I took the children to their school at 8:43am.
When we arrived, the organizer told us that the children could wait outside in the cold or go to class. We chose a class. When we got there, the room was almost empty. Just a few teachers and no one else.
It felt strange. A little stressful, honestly.
Was I really going to leave my kids with two summer camp counselors I had never met, the day after spending eight straight hours with them? My daughter was sad. My son was self-absorbed and started drawing on his own while waiting for the other kids to show up.
I had the whole week free to take care of them. We even got season tickets to Six Flags and Great America. As someone who spent 18 months in school during the pandemic, I have no problem taking care of them every day. Yet here I am, leaving them.
But I couldn't get them out now. We had already paid, and we had already driven. So after staying for 10 more minutes, I gave them a big hug and left.
When I got out, I started to remind myself of the benefits of the camp. Having fun with the new kids. Learning new things. Building a little independence. All ways to try and learn my case. Then I got into the car and headed home.
And now here I am, at 10:21am, sitting on my couch watching Argentina vs. Austria after taking out the trash and charging the batteries for my RC car. Can you believe Messi missed a penalty?!
Be Productive to Beat the Guilt of Neglecting Your Children
Out of guilt, I am writing this post instead of closing the laptop and fully enjoying the World Cup. I decided that if I was going to let someone else watch my kids when I could, I'd better be productive enough to make that decision worth it.
It hit me.
When I dropped the kids off, my guilt was at an all-time high. But when I took out the trash and cleaned the house, the guilt dropped by about 30%. By the time I finish this post, edit it, and schedule it for publication, the case will be down about 70%.
The key to not feeling bad about letting someone else care for your children is to ensure that the opportunity costs are not wasted. The more productive you are while they are away from you, the less guilty you feel.
Let me take this to an extreme. If I spent this week researching one investment decision that made me $1 million in the next year, I'd probably feel guilty for almost a week of summer camp. The trade was clearly worth it.
But if I spent 8 hours a day watching football, writing nothing, and letting the house turn into a pigsty, I would be miserable. There is a strange paradox here. The people who are most able to spend too much time are the ones who feel least guilty about it. All of us can be wasted in the afternoon without our conscience.
So that's the outline. Get the time away by doing something about it. Simple enough.
But the crime statistics look different depending on what kind of parent you are. So let me break down the two groups that wrote to me the most after sharing this idea.
For Working Parents: Your Guilt Meter Should Be Low, But Watch the Readings
If you have to work to support your family, your guilt meter shouldn't be on fire. You don't have much choice. Putting food on the table is the most loving and responsible thing any parent can do. If the kids are at school or at camps during work hours anyway, make good use of your time, don't steal it.
So give yourself a break. Seriously.
But here's the uncomfortable part. I have talked to many working parents who still feel guilty, even though they are doing a responsible job. And when we delve into why, the answer is often not about the kids at all.
That's it, deep down, they don't like their job. Or they suspect that they can downsize, work fewer hours, skip a flight to a meeting, or negotiate more flexibility if they really push for it. But they don't, because the money is good, the title is good, and the unknown is scary.
The case speaks. Not guilty about abandoning children, but guilty about ignorance being honest with yourself.
If your job really requires hours and the salary really changes the life of your family, then your conscience can rest. You're trading your time for security, and that's a good trade-off.
But if you work 60 hours a week for a lifestyle the kids don't care about, while telling yourself you don't have a choice, the guilt will continue. Because part of you knows there's a choice in there somewhere.
The fix is not negotiate a severance package tomorrow. The fix is to be relentlessly present when you are at home. The quality of your hours can cover half of the price. Children remember the parent who was there for the full 90 minutes more than the father who was there for a quarter.
For Stay-at-Home Parents Who Could Do More, But Don't
Now no one in the group wants to talk about it. A stay-at-home parent or a parent who chooses a career who have the time and ability to be with their children, but are freeing themselves anyway. Not working. Not for the break they got. Because they prefer to play tennis and have brunch at the club.
This is where the opportunity cost framework comes into play.
If you're handing over childcare to babysitters, camps, and iPads while scrolling through your phone, running errands, having brunch at the club after tennis, or doing nothing in particular, the guilt will mount. And it should. You had the rarest gift of all, time with your children when they were young, and you let it slip through your fingers for free.
I say this as an honest person in this group. I don't have to drop my kids off at camp this week, but I choose to. Then he wrote 1,900 words to make the choice seem worthwhile. So I don't preach from the top of the mountain. I preach on this sofa you are sitting on.
That said, rest is important. You can't be a present, patient, happy parent if you smoke. A parent who doesn't get a break is the one who hits the spilled juice. Recharging does not waste time. It's an investment in getting better that counts.
Only you know which one you are doing. And if you have to think hard about it, you probably already know the answer.
The real point
The case is not really about the children. They will be fine. They'll have fun at camp, learn from teachers who aren't you, and survive Monday without wandering or daddy around. That is the whole thesis of the book I am writing.
The blame is on you. It's a signal about how you're spending your time in a way that aligns with what you really value.
So when you hear it, ignore it and don't drown in it. Use it. Let it push you to be more productive when the kids aren't, more present when they are, and more honest about the choices you actually make.
Having won the case, I spent another 45 minutes watching France vs. Iraq until the rain was delayed. Except this time it wasn't, because I wrote another post while I was doing it. Twice the productivity, twice the relief.
Which gave me an idea. There are 48 group games in this World Cup. So I'm making a deal for myself: one new post for every game I sit down to watch. If I'm going to plant myself on the couch next month, the least I can do is produce something for myself. Views become revenue.
Binding something that doesn't produce something to something that produces something is a wonderful solution to guilt.
Parents, do you feel guilty when you let someone else take care of your children, even when it's not necessary? If you are a working parent, are you really guilty of leaving the children, or is it about the job you would have given up if you had been honest with yourself? And what's your version of tying something unproductive to something productive, so you can finally enjoy the couch without the nagging voice in your head?
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