We worry. We worry when our favorite artist or athletes get married and have children. We worried about ourselves when we had kids for the same reason. Would this affect our careers? Could we possibly continue to perform at the same level, maintain all the things we maintained when we were younger and had fewer commitments?

There’s even an expression (one we’ve rebutted before) about how ​a stroller in the hall is the enemy of great art​. Parenting comes with so many obligations, so many stresses—it is so all-consuming, it can’t help but be a distraction. But the writer Stephen Marche (​who has an amazing little book on writing​), once explained that “Being a writer and being a parent, I have found, are in conflict but not for the reasons most believe—the loss of time, the sleeplessness, the responsibility for another life, the fixedness in place, the need to make money to support them. Having children, like losing your virginity, changes the nature of meaning.”

His point is that beyond the changes to a woman’s body or a man’s schedule, ​what changes most profoundly is what we value​. Suddenly, the silliness of so many of our goals become clear. The ‘never enough-ness’ of our ambition was suddenly given a dose of perspective. If we were trying to achieve and succeed as some kind of misguided ‘denial of death,’ well, our kids are a form of immortality too.

You have seen something, finally gotten something that people tried to tell you but you just couldn’t understand. Happiness is not in achievement, it’s not in stuff, it’s in people—​specifically, it’s with these people​. ​It’s in the stillness​. The presence is the present, the gift that never gets old. And once you get this, you can still succeed and achieve, to be sure, but you can never go back to how you were before.

You’ve changed.

Harbor​ sets the new standard in baby monitor security, reliability, and quality. It gives parents the best of both worlds: a dedicated, failsafe local monitor (watch up to 4 kids) & the ability to record, rewind, and access via an app outside your home. It has end to end encryption and superior night vision quality. Parents started ​Harbor​ because their Nanit app crashed on them, leaving their son unmonitored overnight with no alerts.

Sign up for ​Harbor’s​ waitlist at ​harbor.co​ to reserve your spot in line – limited quantities begin shipping this summer!

Parents & kids deserve better. ​Harbor built it​.