A web content writer's take on AI

 My day job, as many of you know, is writing web content. Basically just writing informational articles for a company to put on their blog. It's a great job because I can do it at home, I can do it part time, and the money is pretty good for the time I spend on it. And, of course, I've been blogging regularly for 18 years, so you could say I have some experience.

But I realized recently that a lot of people don't understand what the job of writing web content is, or why it's a bad thing for this job to be automated.

Web content started to be popular when companies realized their websites weren't ranked as highly in search results unless they had recent updates on them. It made sense to run a small blog. At first, this was just something anybody at the company did, perhaps mentioning recent updates to their services. But more and more, they realized it could be helpful to hire someone to produce quality content and post it often. People searching for the answer to a specific question, like, "Why is my toilet overflowing?" would land on the page of Gold Star Plumbing, and as often as not, they'd go, "Huh. These guys seem to know what they're talking about. I'll give them a call."

As search engines developed more and more methods of finding good results, content writers had to keep up. This process is called search engine optimization (SEO) and involves stuff like including keywords, subheadings, and pictures to convince Google and its competitors that your page is high quality and has the answers people are looking for.

This led to a golden moment in the history of the internet. Companies with no real interest in educating the public for free still created lots of informative content for you to find and read, just on the off chance you might need their services at some point. And they employed armies of writers at decent wages to provide this service. Any big company tends to run at a certain surplus, and some of that got rolled into providing a real good for humanity. I love it when that happens.

So, my job consists of four things:

• researching a topic so that I can provide accurate facts for the readers
• putting the information in my own words--plagiarism is theft
• explaining it clearly, in a way that's easy to read
• optimizing the content so search engines can find it (and, by extension, my company)

If I failed at any of these, I wouldn't be doing a very good job. My main audience is robots--the little crawler bots that index things for search engines. And I feed them what they want (keywords). But I also do have real people reading my work, and hopefully they learn something from it. My boss particularly wants to provide financial education for free for those who can't afford to use our actual product (appointments with financial advisors). So all this time I've been working for them, I've built a knowledge base you can go into and learn about budgeting, investing, picking a good health insurance plan, that kind of thing. All in terms I hoped were easy to follow and understand.

Enter artificial intelligence. A bit of a misnomer: hardly anyone claims current AI is actually intelligent. It's a remixing machine. It takes in text that we feed it and produces more in the same style. It's a little mysterious because it's programmed to be self-teaching. It's not, strictly speaking, taught to use good grammar, for instance--it mimics us. That leads some people to think it must understand what it's doing. After all, humans learn to speak the same way and we understand what we're doing. But, as far as I can determine, there is no sign it understands any of what it says, can tell fact from fiction, or wants anything.

Of the jobs I do, AI is amazing at job number four, search engine optimization. And why wouldn't it be? The audience is robots, it's a robot. They are definitely speaking each other's language. Already, I've noticed AI-written articles leaping to the top of search results, especially if you're searching for something very basic or AI-adjacent.

So imagine the owner of a company. Currently, the company website publishes an article every weekday, at a cost of $100 per article from a freelancer, for a total of $26,000 a year. But now, they can buy a content creating AI engine like Jasper, which will cost them about $1000 annually for the mid tier package. The savings is amazing, you can hardly say no to a deal like that.

Now, the thing about Jasper is that it cannot tell fact from fiction. It can't even keep its facts straight over the course of a single article. It can, with a bit of trial and error, produce something readable, something that looks like real web content. But the gold kernel in the heart of it, the truth, is not there at all.

Here's an example I found while trying to answer a different question.

We are living in a world where artificial intelligence (AI) is taking over jobs that were once reserved for humans. The question of whether an AI can write a novel has been asked many times. And the answer is yes, an AI can write a novel. 

The question of whether or not artificial intelligence can write a novel is a difficult one to answer. It’s not just about the ability to generate text, but also about the ability to generate compelling and engaging plots. 

AI-novel writing software is still in its infancy stage and it is hard for them to create engaging plots, which is what makes writing novels so challenging. However, there are some use cases where AI writing software has been used successfully such as generating content for an online course. 

Some people might think that the quality of the novel would be lower than if it was written by a human, but this isn’t always true. There are many examples of novels written by AI that have received praise from readers. One such example is “The Day A Computer Writes A Novel” by Patrick Malone and David Levy, which was published in 1973.

It starts out okay. Not the world's best writing, a little cliché and redundant, but we're used to that already. (This is because a lot of web content already is of very poor quality, produced for low pay and in a hurry. The problem, you see, starts before we introduce the machine--a pattern we can see with industrialization everywhere.)

But then you start to notice contradictions. First the answer is yes, then it's difficult to answer, then it's still in its infancy, and then suddenly there's the wild claim that AI has written lots of novels that readers loved, even back in the seventies!

I can tell this is wrong, because a) I know that AI can't yet write novels, and b) this wasn't edited even enough to look convincing. But at times, some of this content may reach the level of being believable, and then it becomes truly dangerous.

Because AI can't think. It can't consider the truth of falsity of anything. You could probably train it to seek out legitimate sources, but it still wouldn't be able to tell what's fact, what's fiction, and what's speculation. It could go looking for sources about what to do about headaches, find a passage about paleolithic treatment for headaches, and recommend drilling a hole in your skull. Because hey, the encyclopedia said that's a thing!

Ah, you might say, but a human could oversee it. That's true. Very often we think of machines doing things, when really, machines are tools allowing humans to do more things in the same amount of time. Like the self checkout. It's not checking out my groceries for me. It's allowing one cashier to supervise the checkout for 10 people at once. This cashier is way more harried, doesn't have time to trade pleasantries with me, and I'm doing most of the work myself and having a terrible time, but--efficiency is improved, which is what capitalism cares about.

So, okay, the content writer has been fired and the boss is using Jasper. But the results are pretty wonky, so the boss calls the writer back up. "I don't need to hire you as a writer at 10 cents a word," says the boss. "But it says here in your ad that you'll edit for 2 cents a word." Okay, sure, says the freelancer. It takes her two hours to write an article, but only ten minutes or so to edit one, so she figures 2 cents a word is fair. 

Unfortunately, the job is way more than editing. She's having to fact check every claim and ends up rewriting most of it. It took an hour and a half, and she only made $20, bumping her hourly rate from $50 to $15.

So she complains to the boss. "This work is a lot harder than editing a human," she says. "It basically only did a quarter of the job, the SEO stuff. I want 8 cents a word at least."

The boss looks at the text Jasper wrote, and then at the text the writer edited. Sure, the latter is clearer, more accurate, and the only one a human would ever want to read. But then he thinks, "It's not my company's job to inform the public for free. I really only want to boost my site in the search results." He calls back the editor and fires her. Every day, a thousand more words of misinformation go up on the internet, and it doesn't hurt his bottom line much at all.

Already search engines aren't as good as they used to be at finding good material. Remember when you used to search for something and get sites run by hobbyists in the field, collecting every single fact available on the topic? Now all the top ten results are the exact same six facts, in the same obnoxious contentese ("Most of us have wondered about this question. To find out the answer, read on!"), covered in so many animated ads it's hard to find the text. AI will only accelerate the decline. And it will become even less possible to hold anybody accountable for plagiarism and misinformation, because nobody actually wrote the text at all. You can hardly blame the boss for something he didn't write.

Now I can tell you this is a bad thing that will take jobs from people and make the internet worse. But that won't stop it from happening. I'm not sure, at this point, that anything will. An informative internet was always a bit of a lucky break. We all benefit from it, but nobody makes money creating it except on the edges here and there.

I hope that many businesses will realize this stuff hurts their reputation. Mine, at any rate, is counting on attracting human eyeballs and educating real people so they are in a good financial position to eventually hire their services. Nobody shares an AI-written article with their friends except as a novelty. You can't go viral with that stuff.

I also hope search engines evolve a bit to reward good sites, whether it's by measuring what sites people click on, allowing us to report bad content, or learning to detect the markers of AI. They, at least, have everything to gain here, because their service is not usable unless they do. However, I worry that their real customers are the businesses they point you to, and they will be more worried about upsetting those businesses than about serving you machine produced word salad.

We will see what's to come. I find myself depressed that we finally got artificial intelligence, and instead of a kindly robot who can teach me the meaning of human existence, I got jumbles of words and surreal pictures with distorted hands. This was not the future science fiction promised me.

Goodbye to Pandora

 Today, I said goodbye to my beautiful cat of 13 years, Pandora (Kitty Kitty to her friends).

I'd always had cats, but John swore when we got married we wouldn't have any, because he did not like them.

Six months later he got me a cat for Christmas because of course he did.

She was a teeny-tiny little thing, found on the mean streets of Philly by some college students. But she didn't get along at all with their other cats, so they put her on Craigslist and passed her on to us.

She was terrified at first. She spent her first week hiding behind the washing machine; all we saw of her was a pair of yellow eyes. Another time I couldn't find her anywhere and thought she'd escaped, when we found her behind an open dresser drawer.

But after a while she warmed up and turned into a very affectionate, one-person cat. She loved me and only me. She demanded to sit on my lap or, if I had my laptop on my lap, would get on the back of the couch and purr against my shoulder. Every single day, if I was home, she was snuggling with me.

She did not like it when we had kids. The nerve. Marko once tried to play with her and she scratched his face. She wasn't having it. She especially hated the dog, when we brought him home. Honestly I'm not sure what we expected. Gilbert always respected her space, having been smaller than her when we got him, but she never relaxed around him.

She had a spot to nap out of his reach, on my desk, and she kept me company every day, despite all the other chaos that was going on.

Then we moved, and she decided the only part of the house she liked was the basement. I tried and tried to convince her otherwise: no dice. But when Gilbert had been shut up for the night, she would come upstairs for a little snuggle sesh on the couch.

Tummy rubs were even allowed, under the right circumstances.

Curled up, she was so tiny.

She was a picture of elegance, as only a black cat can be.

But don't let her elegance fool you: she was as derpy as the next cat. Sometimes she would try to leap onto something, fail, and walk off casually hoping nobody saw that. (We did.)

As she got older, she started warming up to the kids a little bit. She didn't come to them, but if I was already petting her, they could join in.

We got Tiger, and she hated Tiger. Tiger tried to be friendly but no dice. Kitty Kitty would attack her without warning. Sometimes I think Kitty Kitty did not know how to speak cat. She didn't do the normal warnings cats do, and she failed to recognize Tiger's signs of friendliness. Maybe she was kitty-autistic. Or maybe she'd just had some bad experiences with other cats before she came to us.

Anyway, there were a few precious moments in her life when both cats would tolerate each other in order to get close to me, and I always took a picture.

When we moved, she decided the basement here was not adequate, and she claimed my room for herself too. She always wanted me to be on the bed with her. Sometimes she would wander the upstairs hall crying until I came and sat with her. Sometimes she would just hide in the back of my closet instead. But anytime I came to sit or lie on my bed, she would join me.

Have I mentioned her toe beans? Look at those toe beans.

Well, she got old. She had a few concerning symptoms, we took her to the vet, and it turned out her whole belly was full of cancer. There was nothing anybody could really do. It was strange to hear that when she seemed pretty close to fine, just a little on the skinny side and more snuggly than she used to be.

But within a week after that she had a rapid decline. It was really hard to see it happen to her. The hardest part being that she no longer wanted to cuddle. She only wanted to hide under my bed or pace around the house crying. It's been a hard week with her like this. I've woken up at night to carry her to the litterbox, I've syringed water into  her mouth. Not because I thought there was hope, but because I wanted to make it easy for her as long as I could. She deserved everything.

I said goodbye to her today. I had told myself a lot of things about it. That she was a cat, that this is not too bad of a lifespan for a cat, she had a good run. Or that nobody would miss her but me, because at least she was a one person cat. Or that having cats that grow old, and then you get another cat, is the circle of life.

But when it came down to it, I cried so hard. She's been my friend for such a long time, longer than I've known any of my children. She was so tiny and soft. She loved me with her whole heart, a heart that was not open to very many people. I wish we'd had more time, even though I know no amount a cat could have would ever have been enough.

Telling the kids was really hard too. I thought they wouldn't care, but they do. She's been a distant, hostile part of their whole lives. And in the moments when she let them approach and scritch her ears, they felt so special.

We will eventually not be sad anymore. At some point we will get another cat, hopefully one that Tiger gets along with. Loving cats hurts because you know the whole time it won't be forever, and then it's not and you're somehow still surprised. But I'm not going to stop doing it. They are beautiful creatures whose time with us is always worth the pain of loss.

But today, I'm crying because when the kids go to bed tonight, she's not going to pop up to cuddle with me. I wish she could.

It's somehow fall now

So, uh, I haven't updated here since June. Oops. I try to post here at least once a month so my archives look nice and neat, but July was stressful and I missed it then, and then my perfect record was gone so I wasn't motivated anymore. You know how it is. Or maybe you don't, not many people have decade-old blogs they still keep alive anymore!

My parole from fulltime parenting has finally come. Jackie started kindergarten. I've been looking forward to this moment for YEARS and it finally happened!

I was terrified Jackie wasn't going to adapt well. The open house before school started was a disaster. The teacher hadn't seen her IEP, called Jackie "Jacqueline," and had that name on her desk and cubby and everything. Way to give the worst possible impression to a kid already skeptical about the whole business. Jackie spit at her and called her stupid and basically made her worst impression possible.

And yet, once the first day of school rolled around, she was actually fine! She loves her teacher now. Her name has been fixed on everything. She has a best friend she plays with every recess. She always gets ready fast on weekday mornings and wants to go wait at the bus stop 20 minutes before it's time.

Everyone else is doing fine in their new classes. Marko is in Advanced English, which is exciting for him. His grades aren't great, because he keeps missing assignments and not asking for help, but he's learning a lot and trying. I just hope the teacher understands it's an executive function issue, not a lack of effort. Michael is in robotics club a second year running and is also learning the cello. To me, it's just amazing that they give a kid a cello and lessons for free. I want a cello and lessons for free! That was never an option at any of the schools I've been to.

Miriam likes school less this year, because her best friend is not in her class. But she's still doing extremely well and is pulling As in everything because of course she is. I worry about her perfectionism, but I'm proud of her hard work.

John quit his library job and is a project manager now. I feel bad about this, because I think he could have loved libraries if his particular library hadn't been so dysfunctional. Plus a pandemic. Plus underfunding and understaffing and libraries being expected to solve all societal problems simply because they're the only place people can go. But he's very happy in project management and is working from home. It's so nice that he doesn't have to spend hours and hours every week fighting DC traffic. 

Of course I feel like a colossal fool for moving here only one year before he stopped needing to commute. We could have stayed in our old house! We can, of course, move back, but moving is so stressful for everyone and everyone's finally settled in at school, so it feels impossible to consider doing it again. It took me a year to even feel comfortable here. I don't want another year where I feel homesick and homeless because I don't feel like home in the perfectly good house we moved to.

Having Jackie in school had an instant positive effect on my mental health, as I hoped it would. She's just a lot, and I need quiet time to recharge. Now I finally have some.

It did not, however, increase my productivity as much as I thought it would. I have all this time! How is it taking me all that time to do my work, run a couple errands, and occasionally clean the house? My hope was to make a schedule for myself that made my responsibilities routine. I can do just about anything if it's a routine. Unfortunately, that routine keeps getting thrown by other things. I get sick, or a kid gets sick, or I get a bad headache. Every fall I get lots of headaches, and I still don't know why.

So it could be better, but honestly being productive isn't everything. I'm doing the same amount of paid work as before, but I don't feel massively stressed about it. I'm getting book deadlines done. The house looks slightly better than it did during the summer. And I feel significantly better about all aspects of my life.

But my prior ideas of taking on more freelance work or maybe taking some college classes feel ridiculous. With what time? With what energy? Would I maybe have more energy if I had some scheduled activities? But what if I did and it just made me stressed all the time again?

Since I don't know the answer, I'm sticking with this for the present. Just getting done the stuff I need to, and maybe having a little more time for my hobbies. Hopefully going outside a non-zero amount, at least until the weather gets cold. And once it does, maybe making a weekly visit to the local indoor pool.

How are you all doing?

A dream of mine is coming true

 So, April was pretty much a wash for getting anything done, because I had two different trips I took plus two birthdays. And May was mostly lost to COVID. So here we are in June and I'm realizing that this blog hasn't had an update in a while and so you don't know my news!

I finally, FINALLY got a book deal. It is an extremely small book deal with a very tiny, new publisher. But I did my due diligence and they are neither a scam nor complete amateurs, so I think they will do a good job with my books.

Yes, that's books plural, they want the entire solar sailing trilogy. I've been feeling like the world needed more historically-inspired, low-tech space opera, centering the struggles of the common man. Or, in this case, woman. So I wrote one, and then I hadn't managed to fit in all the interesting worldbuilding I'd dreamed up, so I wrote another, and I'm working on the third. And these will ALL be coming to you, starting next summer! With pretty covers and available from major online booksellers!

It's very exciting. I know that publishing on this level, without an agent and separately from the publishing oligopoly (I can't remember if it's Big Five still or Big Four but it's Few Options, anyway) means I won't be selling thousands of copies, becoming famous, or making millions. But it's a chance to reach the select batch of people who will enjoy these books. And lots of authors do start here and gradually build a much bigger following. But honestly, what I wanted was to be picked by a non-me person (eg, not self publishing) and then to be read without having to nag my friends and family to do it as a favor. Which I will finally accomplish.

Now, there's a little snag, which I knew was coming if I ever published these things. The books have a lesbian romance in them. I knew some people wouldn't approve. Other people would start asking questions about me that I haven't answered, at least not in their presence.

I could, of course, try to pretend that I have written *counts on fingers* four novels now with queer romances in them as an exercise in empathy. But I doubt anybody would believe me, and in any event it wouldn't make me happy. The second you begin to doubt whether people would love you if they knew the truth about you, it starts to feel like they already don't love you. Because after all, the only you they have access to is the one with the uncomfortable truths edited out. They love that one, but it isn't you.

Anyway, I am bisexual, and I didn't hide it, and a lot of people got upset about it when they figured it out. Some people seem to think bisexual means that I sleep with a lot of people. (I do not. I am a boring monogamous married lady.) Or that I'm basically straight but want attention. (I would honestly prefer less attention, at least for this.) What it really is, is that some of the things I imagine and dream of and relate to, are women falling for women, so that's what I write. And people could just accept this as a normal thing that people do. But they don't, so I feel the need to explain myself. To say, sure, this is a thing I feel.

It puzzles me that some Catholics disapprove of me because of this. I mean, I left the church some time ago. That was, by Catholic standards, a sin. Feeling butterflies in my stomach because a pretty woman smiled at me is not a sin. It's simply a feeling. You could, I suppose, urge me to try not to feel that way, to pretend I don't, to write only universes in which those feelings never happen, to write only some of the romances I think are beautiful.

But why would I do that?

When I was Catholic, the idea that gay marriage and gay relationships were wrong was a thing I simply had to take on faith. And I no longer have any faith. There is no reason why I should condemn them; there never was. And it just feels better not to second-guess half my feelings, to treat half of myself as broken. I don't feel that I am.

Anyway, if the idea of a Navy midshipman and a notorious pirate falling in love while pushing back against two dystopian governments appeals to you . . . you'll have to wait about a year because publishing is slow, but I'll share the links here when I have them.

The pale horse caught up with me

 Two years I managed to escape it, but now we all have COVID.

It's not hard to figure out how. Two months ago, the schools lifted the mask requirement. Since then, we've all been sick several times, even though my kids still wear theirs. Cloth masks aren't that great to begin with, and they only protect others, not yourself. But N95s aren't available in child sizes. I got them better masks during the steep wave earlier this year, but they cost a lot and weren't reusable. If I'd known cases were on the rise now, I would have gotten more, but the first I noticed was when we were already sick.

Marko caught it first, no surprises there. Middle school requires a lot of mixing around; there are always cases in his school. He had a sore throat and a fever for two days. I should have tested him, but I didn't. Last time I tested him, it took two adults to hold him down and swab him, and it just felt a little heartless when he'd be staying home till he was recovered anyway.

He was sick for two days, well for two, and then I got sick. Sore throat that felt just like a regular cold, with fever following very shortly after. I tested myself that evening and tested positive. So did John.

Various kids have had various symptoms all week. I'm sure the school district would love us to keep track of everyone's individual symptoms and test everyone. But they agreed to my plan to keep us all locked down for ten days and test each kid once before they return.

I'm glad we're all vaccinated. Nobody has been seriously ill. But we adults have been very uncomfortably ill, with excruciating sore throats, coughing, fever, whole days in bed. Today is day 6 for me and I'm sneezing and blowing my nose like I've got allergies, and I still kinda want to stay in bed. But this counts for very good improvement, all things considered.

I feel frustrated and helpless. Sure, there have been times when I've taken calculated risks. I don't know if it's better or worse that none of those times actually gave me COVID, just the non-optional duty of sending my kids to school. (Virtual is not an option this year, here.) I'm mad that we didn't keep masks; people can fight over their effectiveness but I'm pretty sure they kept us COVID-free for two years. Now certain sources are saying that cases are high enough now that people should consider masking again. Seriously? Talk about shutting the barn door after the horse is out. I feel we always do just a bit too little for the current risk scenario. If I briefly feel that we're doing enough, and I actually feel comfortable going out . . . the rules relax further, it becomes less safe, and I stop feeling like I should go out anymore.

I wish I could just relax now, having had it, but they're saying now it's mutating fast enough that a person may be able to get it as much as four times a year. This is just how we live now. Just tolerating an amount of sickness we never did before, with of course a certain number of deaths annually. I hear the flu was the same. There wasn't a seasonal flu before 1918, and now there is, and we just accept tens of thousands of deaths from it, plus of course the misery of the rest of us having to get it. And it's such a little deal that we write off other illnesses as being as insignificant as that.

I'm tired, you guys. None of this had to be this way, but everything seems to be getting stupider all the time, so why not, right? Can't have our health, can't have anything.

Anyway, the kids are mostly well now, and bored, but they're murdering each other significantly less than they sometimes do, so that's something. They'll get back to school in time for two weeks of end-of-year fun, and then it'll be summer. As worried as I am about keeping them entertained without school, I'm glad we'll be able to go outside and play with the neighbors at least.

My ideal vacation

 We went on vacation this weekend. There's a mountain lodge just an hour and a half from us, and John had a three-day weekend. It's sort of an agritourism place—a little farm, horses, a creek, apple trees, that kind of thing.

Going on a vacation with kids is rather fraught. The adults are stressing out trying to make sure we eat and sleep and say on. The kids are bouncing off the walls with excitement to do [future fun thing], or they're currently doing the fun thing and fighting over who can do it first/ most/ best, or they're complaining that the fun thing, which they absolutely did enjoy, was retroactively not fun at all now that it's over.

That said, they did have a good time for the most part. They played foosball, fed goats, and made s'mores. Me, I enjoyed the folk music around the fire, the pond, and doing puzzles in the game room.

Still, vacations are not easy for me. I always spend the first day or two feeling out of sorts. Sleeping in a new place leaves me tired, and without my familiar routines and surroundings I don't feel like myself.

For a weekend vacation, before I can adapt I go home. If the vacation is longer, I get attached to the place and miss it when I leave. I just bond to places more than most people seem to!

But I still amuse myself imagining my ideal vacation. Surely if everything were perfect enough, I could still have a good time!

The most important thing to me is that it's in the country somewhere. I need a nice view out the window and somewhere to walk around outside. If I wanted to overlook a parking lot I could just stay home.

Second, social time is not a vacation. It's still worth doing, and I will travel to see friends because I love them, but then I have to go back to my regular life less rested than when I left! So the ideal vacation is alone.

Third, there must be food I don't have to cook, easily accessible. Airbnbs fail on this count. The name had me fooled at first. There's really just a bed, no breakfast. You can bring your own, but cooking is one of the things I'm seeking to escape!

My ideal situation is like at retreats, where they have set mealtimes and the food is served without fuss. I'll accept a connected restaurant, but if it's 45 minutes and $20 to get lunch, that's not ideal to have to do three meals a day.

Things to do? Not required. I'd bring a book and my laptop to do some writing and be perfectly happy.

These kinds of places exist, for sure. Most of them are religious retreat houses, but I have an allergy. The rest are all inclusive spa resorts, which are too expensive for me. 

But the place we went was pretty close to all I want. I might come here again for a writing retreat, all by myself.

Two views on parenting

 I noticed, rather early in my parenting career, two very different attitudes toward parenting. One, which was mine, was that it is a job. I do it for the sake of my children. It is hard. I cheer on their milestones. The older they get, the closer I am to being done.

The other is that it is an experience to treasure. You are supposed to love every minute. You keep a baby book and tons of keepsakes. You are sad when they grow older, because then you're closer to this magical time being over.

At the time I kind of despised the latter view. I felt it instrumentalized children, made them a fun consumer item rather than a sacred trust. Isn't it our job to help them grow up, not enjoy ourselves? Won't this lead to people pushing their children backwards because they dread them growing up?

But I was watching Jackie ride her bike the other day, and I thought, you know what? This moment won't last. I need to treasure it. Even though I forgot to get a picture of it. Even though I never kept a baby book and lost the kids' ultrasound pictures and don't, honestly, miss the baby stage. There is something to be said for simply delighting in your kids. Because kids deserve to be delighted in. They need to know that being with them makes you happy. That they're not just a chore for you.

I feel that this was missing in the definition I learned of love from various Catholic sources. Love, they reminded us sternly, is not good feelings, it is desiring the good for the other. To which I say, sure, it isn't just good feelings, but when people crave love, they don't simply crave being cared about. We want to be liked. We want to know the other person enjoys being with us. It's the knowledge that the good in us is recognized and appreciated.

This is especially true of kids, who are kind of a chore sometimes and are generally aware of it long before they are able to not be a chore. They know their parents love them, that their parents have to love them, but it doesn't feel good to know that you are loved just for duty, that your presence doesn't make your parents happy.

Obviously this isn't something you can force as easily as "willing the good." You can force yourself to work toward anyone's good, no matter how awful they are, but to like someone, there has to be something good about them. Plus, when you're exhausted or depressed, it can be hard to delight in your kids.

Still. It's important to remember that appreciating what a child (or anyone) has to offer us isn't purely selfish. It's giving them a chance to feel good and worthy. So I've been trying to remember to both say and show to my children that I like being around them. That, sure, some games I play with them purely because they beg me to, but some things I truly do enjoy. I love taking my kids on walks in the woods. I like hearing the ideas they come up with. I like listening to an audiobook or watching a good show together. And it's important that I make that obvious--that my kids know I'm not their grudging servant, I'm a person who is honestly lucky to have such delightful children.