Sunday mornings lost

I wouldn't normally logroll my own stuff here, but this essay I wrote for The Millions seems to be within the jurisdiction of this blog. I managed to turn an episode of my daughter highjacking my Sunday morning New York Times reading to watch cow videos into a reflection on the demands of parenting on writing:

What bothers me more than these compromised moments of leisure is the feeling that my kids take up my time to write. In terms of hobbies, writing is a terrible choice, because it may be the only one that makes you feel guilty when you’re not doing it. I use my kids as my excuse, as in “I’d write at night after work, but by the time we’ve had dinner and get the kids to bed it’s 9:00 and I’m worn out,” or “I wish I could write on the weekends, but my wife works a lot and I’m always stuck with the kids.” It’s a convenient way to rationalize pure procrastination and the fear of, I don’t know, failure I guess.