“Our haste from hence is of so quick condition That it prefers itself and leaves unquestioned Matters of needful value.”

— Shakespeare, Measure for Measure 1.1

This is my last summer as a “stay at home Dad.” I ought to reflect on the time I have spent caring for my children (which is really just the beginning of my parenting journey). And so I have; I see that 'reflecting on the value of' is a meaningless phrase that dodges the real question—because we will never know the true value of our life decisions—not unless we are granted Divine Insight. There are a thousand hidden variables that we will never see, and many thousands of ripples more that escape the meaning of 'variables.' How can I calculate the worth of seeing my baby boy smile just for me? Or snuggling with my girl when I read her books every day? This is the problem with a culture so focused on screen appearances and data driven decisions. We can do this with anything, even reading; one can post quotes on social media, but one of the great joys of reading is not finding quotes, it is experiencing the culmination of a thought or a plot in context. It is the sort of joy that cannot be posted online because no one wants to copy & paste three chapters and an explainer (and even if you did post it, it would suck the exclusiveness out of it). Sociology and science are useful tools that can help us understand ourselves and the world, but they were never meant to replace our hearts. Do I really need a study that tells me about the positive outcomes for children who have active and involved fathers? And even if I did, and I found that study, I would still be plagued by a nagging doubt that I was not that father in that study. Science is maddeningly specific, so we must be extremely careful when we apply it to our lives. Real scientists know this, which is why they speak in experimental terms. Most of us are not real scientists, so we misuse it and doubt all our assumptions unless we have a verified dataset with a regression.