Randall Park

We never should have opened our hearts to their tears, but how can you say no to your children?

And when they asked why, we told them it was dangerous.

They were only 5, 8, 10.

They were kids.

Wasn't it enough that they had their smartphones, their tablets, their laptops, their virtual reality consoles, their screens upon screens upon screens?

But our children kept asking.

Every birthday when they unwrapped their gifts full of more electronics, we saw their disappointment.

Why can't they have it, they asked, over breakfast, over lunch, over dinner.

They asked when we picked them up from school or went grocery shopping.

And we spent hours repeating our reasons, only to be asked again when we tucked them into bed at night.

Maybe in retrospect we agreed simply to get them to stop asking.

One could always have it removed, we reasoned.

And we turned to our husbands and wives, our companions who should have stopped us, but they too were exhausted from all of the pleading.

Most days were spent checking texts with the addiction of chain smokers or searching for funny gifts as if seeking the Holy Grail.

At the end of the day, all we wanted was a couple hours of uninterrupted scrolling.

And so we printed out appointment confirmations and placed them inside gift boxes on our children's birthdays.

or the gifts were bought for our kids by grandparents.

We know it's expensive, our parents told us, but we wanted to spoil them.

And then what could we do?

When our children unwrapped their presents, their faces were illuminated as if discovering a kitten.