If you haven't figured this out yet, now's the time:

Society is pretty fuckin' wrong about a lot of things. If you don't face any blowback, don't follow along with the wrong shit.

I bought a $30 pair of walkie talkies during COVID and had my kid walk their range. She rolled into COVID at 7 with a previous exploration limit of "no further than traffic lights" (basically gave her a couple square miles) so I let it be known that she was allowed to be outside anywhere I could raise her on the walkies. She explored a little but fundamentally she liked logging into the Google Meet the teacher's assistant never remembered to close after school. Eventually she had eight or nine kids hanging out in the "secret meet" after class.

Now - am I a horrible parent for allowing my kid to have some screentime after her all-day screentime? Probably. But she was also the ringleader of a (mild, sub-rosa approved) rebellion against authority that allowed half her class to blow off steam and socialize in the middle of a pandemic. Would she have taken it upon herself to research logical switches in Minecraft to impress her friends if they weren't all dual-screening 2 hours a day? Doubtful.

There are two kinds of parents: those who walk into Babies'R'Us and go "now I can be prepared" and those who walk into Babies'R'Us and go "what is all this bullshit who needs this."

The second kind worries less, spends less money and, dollars to donuts, is gonna raise kids who dominate the game.