Last Father’s Day, June 21, 2026, I had a choice to make. I could play pickleball from 9am to 12pm at an indoor club called Flyte, a 30 minute drive north. Or I could take my kids 30 minutes south to Bay Club Redwood Shores for swim lessons and tennis and pickleball.
For over a year, I’ve taken them every Sunday for five to six hours while we’re in town. It has become a tradition. I’m not exactly having the most fun there because I’m the one teaching, not playing. 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 slowly improve.
So Father’s Day introduced a classic fork in the road.
On the one hand, you might see Father’s Day as a day to take a break from childcare so dad can do his own thing. On the other hand, you can see it as a day to spend even more time with the children, since they are the most important people in the world.
The choice was clear
In the end, I told the tour organizer up north that I couldn’t make it. I felt very guilty leaving the children behind. When I play, we usually go from 7am to 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 almost an hour and a half, hit the hot tub and water park for another hour, read books, ate lunch, visited the Tesla dealership, drove RC cars for an hour, then had dinner.
It was the best father’s day I could have asked for. The only thing that would make it better is if my wife had joined. But she started working on our new book, Your kids will be fineand took some time, as she spends every evening doing homework with the children.
An almost perfect day. And then Monday happened.
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The other day’s comparison was rocking
Monday brought that familiar feeling of father’s fault. But this time, I did nothing about it.
We had signed the kids up for a week of summer school. I dropped my wife off at the preschool where she substitute teaches, then took the kids to their school at 8:43 am.
When we arrived, the organizer told us that the children could wait outside in the cold or go to class. We chose the class. When we got there, the room was almost empty. Just a few teachers and no one else.
It felt strange. A bit depressing, honestly.
Was I really going to leave my kids with two summer camp counselors I’d never met one day after spending eight straight hours with them? My daughter was sad. My son was reserved and started drawing on his own while waiting for the other kids to show up.
I had the whole week off to take care of them. We even got season tickets to Six Flags and Great America. As someone who spent 18 months of home schooling during the pandemicI don’t mind taking care of them every day. Yet here I was releasing them.
But I could not withdraw them now. We had already paid and already done the car. So after staying for an extra 10 minutes, I gave them a big hug and left.
On the way out, I began to remind myself of the benefits of camp. Socializing with young children. Learn new things. Building some independence. All ways to try and learn my fault. Then I got in the car and drove home.
And now here I am, at 10:21 am, sitting on my sofa watching Argentina vs. Austria after taking out the trash and charging the batteries of my RC car. Do you believe that Messi missed the penalty?!
Be productive to overcome the guilt of not taking care of your children
Out of guilt, I’m 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 worthwhile.
And then it hit me.
When I left the children, my guilt was at its peak. But by the time I had taken out the trash and tidied up the house, the guilt dropped about 30%. By the time I finish this post, edit it, and schedule it for publication, the guilt will be reduced by roughly 70%.
The key to not feeling terrible about letting someone else care for your children is to make sure the opportunity cost doesn’t go to waste. The more productive you are while they are out of your care, the less guilt you feel.
Let me take this to the extreme. If I spent this week researching an investment decision that made us $1 million over the next year, I’d probably feel zero guilt about a week of summer camp. The trade was clearly worth it.
But if I spent eight hours a day watching football, writing nothing and letting the house turn into a pig sty, I’d feel terrible. There is a strange irony here. The people most capable of wasting large amounts of time are often the ones who feel the least guilty about it. The rest of us can barely pass an afternoon without our conscience tapping us on the shoulder.
So this is the framework. Win the time away by doing something with it. Simple enough.
But the math of blame looks different depending on what kind of parent you are. So let me break it down to the two groups that wrote to me the most after I shared this idea.
For working parents: Your guilt meter should be lower, but check the reading
If you have to work to provide for your family, your guilt gauge shouldn’t be so hot. You don’t have much choice. Putting food on the table is the most loving and responsible thing a parent can do. If the kids are at school or camp during business hours anyway, you’re being efficient with your time, not stealing it from them.
So give yourself a break. Seriously.
But here is the unpleasant part. I’ve talked to many working parents who still feel guilty, even though they’re doing the responsible thing. And when we dig into why, the answer usually has nothing to do with children.
It’s so deep, they don’t love their job. Or they doubt they could cut a shift, work fewer hours, skip a plane for a meeting, or negotiate more flexibility if they really pushed for it. But they don’t, because the money is good, the title is beautiful, and the unknown is scary.
This is the fault. I’m not guilty of leaving the children, but guilty of not to be honest with yourself.
If your job really requires hours and the income really changes your family’s life, then your conscience can rest. You are trading your time for their safety, and that is a noble trade.
But if you’re working 60 hours a week to afford a lifestyle the kids don’t care about, while telling yourself you have no choice, the guilt will keep nagging. Because part of you knows there is a choice out there somewhere.
The adjustment is not to negotiate a severance package tomorrow. The solution is to be relentlessly present when you are at home. The quality of your watches can partially offset the quantity. Children remember a parent who was fully there for 90 minutes more than a father who was half there for four.
For stay-at-home parents who could do more but don’t
Now nobody wants to talk about the group. The stay-at-home parent or work-optional parent who has the time and ability to be with their children, but still routinely takes them away. Not to work. Not for a break they’ve earned. Just because they prefer to play tennis and brunch at the club.
This is where the opportunity cost framework bites the most.
If you outsource childcare to babysitters, camps, and iPads while you scroll through your phone, run errands that can wait, breakfast at the club after tennis, or do nothing in particular, the guilt will get worse. And it should. You had the rarest gift of all, time with your children while they are young, and you let it slip through your fingers for nothing.
I say this as someone in this group. I don’t have to drop my kids off at camp this week, but I chose to. Then wrote 1,900 words to make the choice feel worthwhile. So I’m not preaching from a mountaintop. I’m preaching from the same couch you’re sitting on.
That said, the rest matters. You can’t be a present, patient, fun parent if you’re running on fumes. The parent who never rests is the one who picks up the spilled juice. Recharging is not wasted time. It’s an investment to be better when it matters.
Only you know which one you are doing. And if you have to think about it a lot, you probably already know the answer.
The True Point
The fault is not about the children. They will be fine. They’ll have fun at camp, learn from teachers who aren’t you, and survive a Monday without more or daddy hovering nearby. This is the entire thesis of the book I am writing.
It’s your fault. It’s a signal if you’re using your time in a way that aligns with what you really value.
So when you feel it, don’t ignore it or drown in it. Use it. Let it push you to be more productive when the kids are away, more present when they’re around, and more honest about the choices you’re actually making.
Beating the guilt, I spent another 45 minutes watching France v Iraq until the rain delay. Except this time there wasn’t one, because I wrote another post while I did it. Double the productivity, double the relief.
Which gave me an idea. In this World Cup, 48 matches of the group stage take place. So I’m making a deal: a new post for every game I sit down to watch. If I’m going to plant myself on the couch for the next month, the least I can do is produce something for it. Viewing becomes profit.
Associating something unproductive with something productive is a tremendous solution to erasing guilt.
Parents, do you feel guilty about letting someone else babysit your kids, even when you technically don’t have to? If you’re a working parent, is it actually your fault for leaving the kids, or is it about a job you’d quit if you were honest with yourself? And what’s your version of connecting something unproductive with something productive, so you can finally enjoy the couch without the nagging voice in your head?
Protect people you feel guilty about leaving
If you have young children, the best way to completely erase any type of guilt is to make sure they are financially protected if something happens to you. I bought my own life insurance policy years ago, and the peace of mind was worth every penny.
with Genius of politicsyou can compare quotes from leading insurers in one place and find the right cover without the usual kickbacks. Spend a few minutes now so you can spend the rest of your time being present, without worrying. My wife and I got the matching 20-year term policies through Policygenius and feel tremendous relief as a result.
