I’m here to make a confession: A few months ago, despite the common belief that you should hold off on screen time until your kid is two, I bought my toddler a tablet and it completely changed my life.
Before I had Beckett, I spent most weekends road-tripping to climbing destinations and far-off hot springs. I’d go for all-morning runs to train for upcoming races and even drive 18 hours to my hometown a couple of times a year to visit my family. Having a baby with a three-minute attention span quickly put a stop to many of my favorite hobbies.
And then I saw the kids’ Fire tablet was on sale for $70 (you can buy it for $109 now), and I went for it. I’m an Apple user through and through, so I hated every minute of setup on this Amazon device, but once I got it functioning in the way I wanted, it was a game changer.
Now hour-long jaunts to the lake to SUP are nothing because my son just watches his pre-downloaded (which the thing does automatically!!) Cocomelon episodes. I’ve started throwing it into the stroller if I know I want to log a longer run. Suddenly the meltdowns that hit like clockwork at mile two began to hold off until mile five or six.
Are we ready for an 18-hour mission to Minnesota? Probably not, but my world just got a lot bigger thanks to this cheap device. And look, while I can’t promise you that letting my son watch Miss Rachel regularly is good for his brain development, I can tell you that he’s spending a lot more time outdoors in cool places—and he seems much happier after a fun day outside. Yes, you can officially count me as pro-screen-time. Don’t @ me.
What I’m reading
Happy Pride Month! (We should celebrate the LGBTQ+ community every month, every day.) This year, the social conservatives seem even more obnoxious and vocal about their bigotry than ever. I’ve been reading about Target dropping a trans designer’s items, giving in to conservative protesters, and about The North Face doing the right thing and telling haters to fuck right off after featuring Pattie Gonia in its “Summer of Pride” ads.
Then of course, there’s the DeSantis war on Disney, which I’ve been following closely in my new job. This article gets into all of it.
“We have to remember that pride started off as a protest,” said Garcia, who was the first openly gay mayor of Long Beach before winning his House seat last year. “It cannot just be a celebration anymore. We are being systematically attacked.”
Energized by a boycott of Bud Light — and before that, by Ron DeSantis’s parental rights battle with Disney — social conservatives see this year’s Pride Month as an opportunity to make corporations pay for LGBTQ-friendly marketing, especially for products enjoyed by children.
The goal is reversing a decade-long, market-chasing trend toward more LGBTQ visibility, and to “make that rainbow flag absolutely toxic,” as Daily Wire podcast host Michael Knowles told listeners last week. In the political arena, DeSantis has contrasted his approach to fighting “woke corporations” to Donald Trump’s, elevating the issue in the GOP primary.
Read “Pride Month Is a War. Brands Are the Battlefield.” here.
In other dire political news, for her newsletter, Culture Study, this week, Anne Helen Petersen interviews Hannah Matthews, an abortion doula, about Matthews’ new book, You or Someone You Love. Petersen and Matthews discuss abortion funds, abortion as justice, and so much more. Here’s a short excerpt from the book that Petersen wraps the interview with:
One to two days after taking these medications, there is a 98 percent chance that you are no longer pregnant. That you have been returned to an unpregnant state — yourself again, or still. Or maybe you are in a new, post-pregnant state. Maybe you are a new self. But regardless, you will probably be able to get up on that third morning, as you always do, to go to school or work, or to care for the children you already have. And when you get up on that third morning, no matter what circumstances brought you there, you are still whole, and worthy, and inherently good. You are still you. Or you are a new you and a different you. I love them both the same.
Read the interview about “You or Someone You Love” here.
And let’s end on a fun one: Steph Pearson’s adventure (and a bit of misadventure) tale on biking Utah’s new 190-mile Aquarius Trail is a joy to read.
One last wrong turn sets us back about a mile. Brian and I finally roll into the hut at 3:30 P.M. It sits at 8,110 feet elevation, at the base of a monolith banded by red and white sandstone. Just as we enter the shelter, a hailstorm rips through, dropping pea-size pellets. They ping off the steel container that, with its propane heater, has been warmed like an oven.
“That was some riding!” Aaron says, stoked. “That’s more like what you get in an endurance race.”
“I’ve ridden 45 miles, climbed almost 4,537 feet, and shifted 372 times,” adds Brian, checking his Garmin.
When the hail stops, I return outside to find a barrel of sanitized hut shoes for guests. I toss the broken Crocs, which are marked with tire burns, into the garbage. Too lazy to unclip the packs from my bike, I unzip the rear bag and the contents spill out onto the dirt. I crack beer number one and ruminate over the First Rule of Bikepacking, which also seems an apt metaphor for life—carry less baggage.
Read “Biking the Aquarius Trail in Utah” here.
The good stuff
Amazon Fire 7 Kids Tablet ($109): I already wrote an ode to this thing above, but seriously: It’s cheap for a tablet, has an auto-download feature, and allows you to lock the screen so little fingers can’t hit pause or exit by mistake. The kids’ Fire tablet comes with a bulky safety case to protect it from many drops (ours has already survived more than I can count), with a handle perfect for little hands that converts into a stand to prop it upright. If you can get past your screen time hangups, this device will make your life so much easier.
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Last but not least
