2026-07-02
Survivorship bias in parenting — I was only looking at the planes that made it back
Survivorship bias in parenting: Instagram wins, the mom who has it figured out, my kid's 'I'm fine' — all survivor data. And regression to the mean makes yelling look like it works. So I put my kid's days on a moving-average chart. That app is GrowthTrend.
2026-06-13
“They grow up so fast” — so I did the math on how much time I have left with my kid
7 p.m. on a Tuesday, kid on the floor at Trader Joe's, and the grandma behind us smiles and says “they grow up so fast.” Same cliché as “things were better back then,” I think. So I went home and did the math. We're past 50% already. LastDays is a countdown of the days left with your kid — the app I built so I'd see that number on my phone every day.
2026-08-11
"No way I can do all that!" — summer homework that won't get done, a wall of Post-its, and TodoBingoNew
Summer homework wasn't getting done, so I cut all of it into TodoBingo squares and taped the whole summer to the wall. A month's plan finished in two weeks.
2026-06-22
The paradox of choice in parenting — why "pick whatever you want" froze my kid
Closet open, kid frozen for three minutes. "Just pick something." Iyengar & Lepper's 2000 jam study (24 options vs 6) explains it. Why narrowing choices got him moving — and why the same logic runs through our Todo apps and the way I scope projects at work.
2026-06-08
TDD parenting — the workbook was running a test suite on us the whole time
Three red X's stacked on a math sheet used to send me into hint-mode. Then it clicked — workbooks are basically a test suite. Wrong answers aren't bad. They're the point. TDD parenting, or Failure-Confirmation-Driven Parenting (engineer-dad frameworks series, Part 2).
2026-06-07
Engineer dad parenting: applying TDD, BDD and DDD to raising kids (series intro)
Software has too many *-Driven Developments. But every framework is a can of inherited wisdom, and leaning on one usually saves rework. I'm going to try the same trick on parenting — TDD, BDD, DDD, XP, all retranslated for raising my kids.
2026-06-03
Not giving in to tantrums (but always taking the deal) — our one dinner-table rule
There's a Korean saying — 우는 아이 떡 하나 더 준다 — the kid who cries gets one more rice cake. Same energy as our 'squeaky wheel gets the grease.' Not at our house: we don't give in to tantrums, but calm negotiation always gets heard. You can deal, you cannot yell your way to a different dinner.
2026-05-31
Orwell's doublethink, but it's parenting — he won't listen, and I want him happy
WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. And my kid won't listen, but I want him happy. I lined up the 1984 slogans next to my own, and turns out I'm running doublethink in my living room every day. Nobody made me do it.
2026-05-30
"Fools learn from experience" — Bismarck, Piaget, and a kid who won't take my shortcuts
Same kanji, same wrong stroke, third time this week. I already hit this wall 30 years ago. I'm trying to hand him the history. He's not taking it. Bismarck's
2026-05-29
Losing patience with my kid over a test score — until I split process from outcome
My kid brought home a 60. I felt the lecture rising and stopped it — barely. Turns out the rage isn't about the score. It's about him not doing what I want, when I want. On losing patience with your kid, process vs. outcome responsibility, and why treating your kid as a separate person is mostly for your own sanity.