The Afternoon I Stopped Rescuing My Kids From Boredom

I drove eight hours alone with two kids under five and two dogs. Here's what broke.

I want to tell you a story about the day I became a hypocrite.

Atlanta to St. Louis. Just me, both kids, both dogs, and an SUV packed with everything we needed and several things we didn't. My first time making this drive alone with both of them. I'd planned ahead, broken it into two days, mapped out the stops. I thought I was ready.

I had packed snacks. I had packed backup snacks. I had downloaded podcasts and playlists and audiobooks. I had grand plans about the kind of mother I would be on this drive: patient, present, full of games and songs and "I Spy" variations that would make the miles disappear.

Somewhere in the first few hours, I handed them the iPad.

One iPad, two kids. Brightness up. Volume on. Here you go. Figure it out.

It was the first time I'd ever done that with both kids. And once I started, I couldn't figure out how to stop. The screen stayed on for most of both days. Glazed eyes, slack jaws, the occasional robotic laugh at whatever algorithm-selected content was cycling through. I drove in silence, or what passes for silence when something loud and colorful is playing in the backseat.

I told myself it was fine. I told myself I had no choice. I told myself that solo parenting on a highway with two dogs panting in the back and a toddler who could melt down at any moment meant survival mode, and survival mode gets a pass.

All of that was true. And none of it made me feel better.

The Impossible Math of Solo Parenting

Here's the thing about being alone with your kids for a two-day road trip: there is no good option.

Option one: No screens. This means you become the entertainment. You narrate. You sing. You invent games. You answer four hundred questions, many of which are the same question asked slightly differently. You manage the bickering, the boredom, the "are we there yet" chorus that starts approximately eleven minutes into the drive. You do all of this while also operating a vehicle at highway speeds, monitoring traffic, managing dogs, and maintaining the thin veneer of calm that keeps everyone from unraveling.

Option two: Screens. This means silence. Peace. The ability to think a complete thought. The ability to change lanes without someone screaming about a dropped goldfish cracker. The ability to arrive at your destination without having aged fifteen years.

Most of us choose option two. Not because we're bad parents. Because we're tired. Because we're alone. Because the math doesn't work any other way.

I chose option two. And I spent six hours feeling like I had failed at something I couldn't even name.

What I Wished Existed

Somewhere around hour five, I started thinking about what I actually wanted.

I didn't want my kids to stare at screens for six hours. But I also didn't want to white-knuckle my way through a tantrum on I-65 while two dogs barked in my ear. I wanted something in between. Something that could hold their attention without hijacking it. Something that could fill the space without numbing them.

I wanted audio that respected their minds. Stories that didn't shout. Content that left room for their own thoughts to wander.

I wanted something that understood the car ride isn't a problem to solve. It's a space that could become something else entirely, if only there was something designed for it.

I wanted wonder before we arrived. Something more than distraction until we got there.

That drive was the first time I clearly understood what was missing. The market was full of options for entertaining kids. It was full of options for educating them. It was full of options for putting them to sleep. But there was nothing for the in-between. Nothing for the long stretch of highway. Nothing for the quiet hour after school. Nothing for the moments that most parents try to eliminate and most children desperately need.

That absence is where wonderbefore eventually came from. But on that drive, I didn't have it. I had two iPads and a growing sense that there had to be another way.

The Guilt We Carry

I want to be honest about something: I still feel guilty about that drive.

Even now, knowing what I know about productive boredom and the Default Mode Network and all the research that tells me unstructured time is essential for developing minds. Even now, having built something designed to fill exactly the gap I felt that day. Even now, I remember the look on my kids' faces after two days of road trip screen time and I cringe.

Parenting is full of these moments. The ones where you know the ideal and choose something else because the ideal isn't available. The ones where you survive the day and then lie awake wondering if surviving was enough.

I don't think guilt is useful. But I do think it's honest. And I think pretending we don't feel it does a disservice to every parent out there making impossible choices in impossible moments.

So here's what I've learned to do with the guilt: I let it point me somewhere.

That drive pointed me toward building something that didn't exist. Your hard moments might point you somewhere different. But the guilt isn't the end of the story. It's information. It's telling you what you wish were possible.

What Changed After That Drive

I didn't become a perfect parent after Atlanta to St. Louis. My kids still watch screens. We still have long drives where I hand over the iPad because I need to think or because I'm tired or because the alternative is everyone crying, including me.

But something shifted.

I stopped seeing boredom as a problem I was failing to solve. I started seeing it as a space I could learn to hold. Not always. Not perfectly. But more often than before.

I started noticing the moments that were already there. The ten minutes in the car before school. The hour after nap when nothing was scheduled. The stretch before dinner when everyone was a little restless and I used to reach for a screen just to get through.

I started asking: what if I didn't rescue them from this?

And sometimes, the answer was chaos. But sometimes, the answer was watching my kid stare out the window and say something I never expected. Watching them invent a game I couldn't have imagined. Watching them move through the discomfort and come out on the other side with something that was entirely their own.

That's the thing about productive boredom. It doesn't work every time. It's not a guarantee. But when it does work, you see something in your child that screens will never show you. You see their mind doing what it was built to do.

Permission Granted

If you're reading this and you've handed your kid a screen to survive a hard moment, I want you to know: you're not a bad parent. You're a tired one. You're a real one. You're doing the impossible math and coming up with the only answer that works in that moment.

And also: there's another way. Not instead of screens, but alongside them. Not perfection, but practice. Not eliminating the hard moments, but learning to hold them a little differently.

That's all productive boredom is. An invitation to try something new. No judgment on what you've done before.

I'm still learning. I'm still failing. I'm still driving long distances with two kids and two dogs and making choices I second-guess later.

But I stopped rescuing my kids from every boring moment. And what happened next changed everything.

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