[rootusrootus]

> Maybe when he's older I'll have time for a midlife crisis.

If you're like me, yes. When I was 40, my daughter was 3, and I didn't have much time for worrying. Now both my kids are tweens and my direct day-to-day responsibilities as a parent have declined so much that I have plenty of time for a proper midlife crisis. It sucks more than I ever imagined, though I'm working through it and feeling a little better about the future.

[foobarian]

I'm in your shoes, more or less, and what I panic about is the fact that now that the hands-on time with the tween is so much more optional, I could be missing out on invisible parenting opportunities by not being proactively involved. Example, kid is happy to spend all day drawing or reading or playing BS roblox games with friends. Should I have put more of a limit on this and insisted on a couple of hours a day of other activities like crafts, music instruments, or just hanging out/hooking up playdates? It's a lot easier to be lazy at this age since the kid is not actively trying to do something dangerous like play with scissors or fall into a pool.