I am glad to see this: "I do not believe the quality time theory. I firmly believe in maximizing the quantity of time spent with them." Because I think that a

I am glad to see this: "I do not believe the quality time theory. I firmly believe in maximizing the quantity of time spent with them." Because I think that among highly motivated workers there's a falsely held belief that you can make up for missed time with your children by planning "exclusive time" with them, either over a nice vacation, or special night in a month, or whatever. And, don't get me wrong, any time is better than no time. But I think that strong relationships might be made best in the down moments, the "bored" time, the random stuff, the drives to school, picking up the house, mealtimes, random crap, that those are the times that you discover the little nuances of your children's personality (and your own personality). Before kids, I frequently defined myself by my work or my hobbies. Meet someone new and you're chatting with them, and I'd say "Oh, yeah, I'm a software engineer, yeah, I like to fish, I play basketball, I love watching football and drinking beer, I'm from [X] city, I want to this college and studied this subject." And that's how I defined myself. It's pretty normal, I think. Since having kids so much of my identity has changed and how I identify myself has changed. That "I Think You Should Leave" sketch from Season 2 or 3 resonated with me, the "DONT TALK ABOUT YOUR KIDS" sketch because it's so hard not to, especially with other people who have kids, it's like ... what else can I talk about? The hobbies I had before kids seem utterly pointless and valueless in retrospect. After our second, my wife got sick, she was diagnosed with ALS when he was just over a year old, though she had undiagnosed symptoms going back to before she was pregnant with him. She physically can't care for him, and so I've been my son's sole caretaker, and my daughter's primary/default caretaker though she's 8 years old, so my wife is able to contribute more evenly with parenting for her. As he gets older, depending on the progression of the disease, that can increase with my son as well, but for a newborn, infant, baby, and toddler, there's just so much physical care for those ages that it's hard for someone with a neurological, degenerative disease to contribute in the same way. Kids truly changed everything with me. Every single way that I define myself. I don't define myself by my work at all anymore, and I sometimes define myself by my hobbies, but I feel entirely defined by my kids. If I was answering some general inquiry about myself, and if I was allowed to be frank, I'd lead with my kids, it's how I see myself. When I saw the Bob Odenkirk line from Mike Birbiglia's podcast/interview, I legitimately cried, because it hit me right in the throes of parenting hell. I have a wife who I'm taking care of, I had a ~7ish year old who I was trying my best to help through adolesence, and I had a 1.5 year old who I was completely and wholly responsible for keeping alive, keeping healthy, and keeping happy. And this quote just hit me like a ton of bricks. Birbiglia: "Who are you jealous of?" Odenkirk: "Anybody who has little kids at home, growing up. ... Yeah, there's no question I knew what I was doing when I had kids growing up, I was being a dad. I mean, that was my job, and I didn't have to ask myself, 'What am I doing here? How can I be a part of this world? How can I be meaningful today?' I didn't have to ask that question, because the fucking answer is 'Pick up everything between here and the door, and make sure they get to school, and have a laugh with them.' I understood my purpose." And god, that fucking resonates with me so, so hard. It still makes me cry when I hear that or see the clips of it, because I realized that when I was answering that question every other time trying to describe myself, and when I answered with what I do, and what I studied, and where I'm from, or what my hobbies are, those were all bull shit. And now when I think of who I am, I know who I am, I am dad. I am a bad software engineer. I'm a mediocre project lead. I think I'm a good colleague. But I know that I'm a great dad.