It’s been a rough couple weeks. You watched your retirement accounts lose as much as 30% of their value. You’re watching businesses disappear left and right. Maybe you’re stuck at home. Maybe you have to show up to work every day, with a flutter of fear in your heart, because you have one of those “essential” jobs. Your kids are at home—school is canceled. You’re going through groceries like crazy. You’ve never used more toilet paper. And the news is bad, bad, bad, every single day. 

This is a lot to manage. But it is at least a reminder. It’s a reminder of what’s actually important. It’s incontrovertible proof that your most essential responsibility in this life has nothing to do with the economy, with “finding your passion,” even your marriage suddenly seems a lot less of a priority. Because you’re being reminded that what truly matters, the one thing that only you can do, is taking care of your kids. However old they are. However protected or privileged you are. 

For weeks now there has been no handing them off to a teacher. You are the teacher! There is no nanny to pick up the slack. You are the nanny! There is no carting them to soccer practice. There are no grades to check on. All the standardized tests have disappeared. Will there even be colleges when this is over? 

What this pandemic has placed in stark relief is that your most essential job—even if you are a doctor or a nurse—is being a father. Nothing else matters quite like it. Stripped of so many of your other concerns, you’re being forced to think about it and focus on this responsibility in a way that you probably haven’t since they were born. 

And that is an incredible gift. A reminder like no other. So heed it. Seize it. Let it sink in. It’s telling you something important about what is important.

P.S. This was originally sent on July 7, 2020. Sign up today for the Daily Dad’s email and get our popular 11 page eBook, “20 Things Great Dads Do Everyday.”