Writing this at midnight because I can't sleep thinking about how much this applies to my life. My kids are 6 and 8, and we've been in the exhaustion cycle you're describing. Summer camps, birthday 'experience gifts' instead of toys, weekend trips to 'enrich' them.

The turning point for us was actually kind of mundane: summer camp got delayed, we ended up with a week at home with nothing planned, and we all discovered we actually kind of liked it. Kids played outside without a structured activity. We cooked together. My son got obsessed with making a map of our block. My daughter taught herself to skip rocks in our driveway for an hour.

But I want to flag something that's been weird: now I feel GUILTY about not doing things. Like I'm not being a 'good parent' because we're not doing enrichment. My brain is still in productivity mode, just applied to idleness now. Is that just my personality, or is this what our culture does to parents?

Also - and maybe this is cynical - part of me wonders if this 'do less' philosophy gets easier to embrace once you've done enough. Like, you've already given your kids a particular toolkit of experiences. Choosing simplicity after that is different from never offering the experiences at all.

I don't know. I think you're right about something. But I'm not sure what the opposite extreme looks like and whether we're just swinging between two flavors of parental anxiety.

I'm going to gently push back here, though I appreciate the self-awareness in your post. You're describing relief at stopping something exhausting, which is real and valid. But I think there's a risk of swinging too far the other way and calling all structured activities performance anxiety.

Some kids - and I have one - actually thrive with gentle structure and exposure to different things. My daughter discovered she loves marine biology because we took her to an aquarium. Not Instagram-worthy, not expensive, but something clicked. She asks to learn about sea creatures now. Without that initial experience, that passion wouldn't exist.

The thing is, presence and experiences aren't mutually exclusive. You can be present during a hike, present at a museum, present in the backyard. The presence part is yours to control. But I don't think boredom is inherently better than curiosity-driven activities.

I think what you're really describing is the toxic version of over-scheduling and experience-collecting as a status thing. That's worth critiquing. But maybe the answer isn't fewer experiences - it's fewer *unnecessary* ones. Doing things because they matter to your family, not because they matter to an imaginary audience. That's different.

Your daughter wanting to just sit and watch the beach - that's the story that gets me. Because yeah, that's beautiful and real and we don't do enough of it. But I'm also thinking: if a kid has never been to a beach before, that first experience is kind of wild and important, right? She could sit and watch because beaches existed in her life.

I grew up in the Midwest, nowhere near an ocean. My parents didn't prioritize experiences. They prioritized stability and practical stuff. I'm grateful for that stability, genuinely. But I've also spent my adult life wishing I'd had more exposure to different places and possibilities when I was young, because there are some things you can't really understand until you've experienced them.

So I think you're right about the performance aspect being toxic. But I think there's something in between 'exhausted experience-collection' and 'just sit in your backyard' that's actually the goal. Thoughtful exposure. Letting kids follow curiosity. Maybe less scheduling, but not zero.

The fort thing is great. The beach thing is great. But wouldn't it be even better if your daughter got to do both? Different things at different times, all with actual presence instead of stress? That seems possible without being the performance parent.

Okay, so real talk: this is a beautifully written essay about parental burnout that's getting dressed up as a philosophy about child development. And I say that with love, because burnout is real and valid.

But let's be honest about what we're seeing. You were exhausted. You made a change that made you less exhausted. Of course things feel better. That doesn't necessarily mean your original instinct about experiences was wrong - it means you were overdoing it.

I grew up in a low-income household where experiences *weren't* an option. We didn't go anywhere. We had a lot of space and boredom, sure. But I also remember feeling like there were whole worlds I'd never get to access. When I took my kids to the science museum, my youngest got obsessed with paleontology and we followed that for three years. I don't regret that.

I think the real lesson here might be: do things intentionally, not frantically. Some experiences matter. Space and boredom matter too. It's not either/or. The performance aspect you're describing - that's the problem. Not the experiences themselves.

Maybe the sweet spot is fewer things, chosen with actual intention, where everyone actually wants to be there.

Thank you for writing this. I needed to hear it. My partner and I just spent $3,000 on a 'family adventure week' to national parks, and honestly? The best moment was when our 8-year-old fell asleep on my shoulder in the car between destinations. We'd paid for experiences and got a nap. The irony killed me.

But here's what I'm wrestling with: we live in a city where a lot of other families ARE doing the experiences thing. Not trying to brag, but it's the culture of our neighborhood. So when my kids say they want to do coding camp or take piano lessons because their friends are, I can't tell if that's them wanting to participate in their actual community or if it's manufactured FOMO that we've all created together.

I think you're onto something real about presence and space being underrated. My kid's fort story connects hard - my daughter spent weeks designing an imaginary restaurant in our living room and it taught her more about planning and creativity than any camp could. But I also don't think it's black and white. A museum trip that you both actually want to do? That's different from experiences as resume-building. The difference might just be whether you're doing it for them or for the Instagram story you'll never post.