Imagine this wonderful moment for a moment. You tuck your kids into bed and tell them how proud you are of them for scoring that morning at soccer or for helping your little brother put on his shoes at the park. They still sleep with lots of Squishmallows and they still refuse to buy the adult ones so they smell like baby shampoo. When they stop you and say, “Hold on, can I tell you a story?” you’re giving them those last few hugs.
you sigh. It’s late. You’re very tired.
they are only small once It rings in my head like a countdown clock. Childhood lasts only 18 years. One day it will be the last time you tell them a story, and you don’t know it.
“Please?” they ask.
Can’t resist. “Just one thing,” you say. You sit and snuggle into their blanket, pulling them closer…
Then, you fire up your favorite AI bot and ask, “Create a great bedtime story for a 7-year-old girl with a princess and a dragon, make sure the princess’s name is Eva, and—”
Please stop now.
Apparently (!) this is what we are currently doing. Adults with children of their own are using AI bots to come up with bedtime stories. Don’t just look up prompts or text a friend, “Hey, how do you start a bedtime story with Zach?” But for this precious moment, you rely on robots named Grok, Claude, or the Great Idiot who wants to turn your brain to mush.
and it’s so terrible dark.
Understood. I really think so. you are tired And the last thing you want to do is have a bedtime story when you’ve been running back and forth since 6 a.m. when your child wakes you up by dropping an elbow on your boob. But hear me out. Because I think we are giving up something irrevocable here.
Everyone who uses AI has a “good reason” for doing so. They use it because they are not confident in their email writing skills. They use it to “clean up” their documents. But if you never write your own emails, proofread your own documents, or come up with your own ideas again, you’re done. never You’ll get better at those things. Just…please stop. And eventually you forget how.
Are you tired and can’t think of a bedtime story? Great news — the world book. Why not go to the library, Barnes & Noble, or your local indie bookstore and pick up a book? Why not ask your mom what she reads to you at night? You can also search for “children’s books” on Google and find a huge selection of children’s books, including reviews.
You can also be just a human being. Not everyone who is asked to tell their child a story will come up with some magical, novel idea that Scholastic buys and Warner Brothers turns into a theme park a year later. That’s the way it should be!
He stumbles over his words, forgets that he said the princess’s name is Eva, and starts calling her Eren midway through, and the story keeps changing without us even knowing what’s next, until the child starts laughing and howling.How on earth does a dragon come out of a beehive cursed by a witch?
Tell a story from your childhood, like when grandpa found a baby raccoon in the backyard, named it and left him an oatmeal cream pie. Tell your child the story Angels in the outfield. Create a story that uses the words “fart” and “butt” at least once every three sentences. Kids just want it. you be in bed with them, talk. That’s all! But you’re saying like, if you don’t have a perfectly curated bedtime story, none of it matters.
We know that AI has a role too. But put it in the mundane things that take up too much time. When you upload your school calendar, all dates are added to Family Planner. Ask how to divide the cookie dough so you can set aside enough cookie dough for the children in your child’s classroom with peanut allergies. Divide your grocery list into sections, divided by store you need to go to next, to make your errands more efficient.
And do all of this while remembering that this is the purpose of AI: to simplify your life. It’s not to take over them. By letting AI do all the brain-energy-intensive processing, you can make your brain write a funny note on a friend’s birthday card, write an email from the PTA, or tell your kids a bedtime story.
You don’t need blue light shining on your face when you go to bed anyway.
