Life fatherhood Parenthood the US

This dad says he doesn’t like being around kids and only wants to parent his children for 10 minutes a day – 17 responses that hit the motherlode

Michael White. Updated January 10th, 2026

Look, parenting is hard. There’s no avoiding that fact.

It seems, though, that some adjust easier to the role than others.

Take Justin Murphy, a writer and former professor, based in Austin, Texas. This week, he issued a long post on Twitter about his parenting his 4-year-old is starting to make him “fear for my soul”. He goes on to say he doesn’t like being around kids and ideally would only have to be in their vicinity for 10 minutes per day.
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It reads:

Am I just a monster? It’s been 4 years since I became a father and I’m beginning to fear for my soul. The truth is I just don’t like being around kids for very long. Historically, this is not uncommon among fathers, but today it feels almost illegal. It’s causing me a lot of confusion and anguish.

The ideal amount of time I would like to spend playing with my kids is probably about 70-140 minutes a week—roughly ten minutes each day, maybe 2x/day, taking breaks from work. My feelings of love toward them are perfectly strong, but if I have to watch them or entertain them for more than about 10 minutes my blood starts to boil. I just want to be working, or accomplishing something. I try to be grateful, but it doesn’t work.

It’s 9 AM this morning, Saturday, January 3. It’s a sunny, warm day here in Austin, and my four-year-old son is begging me to play catch in the street. I was drinking coffee, still waking up, so I didn’t really feel like it, but at this age his desire to play is insatiable. He begged and begged, so I conceded, and with a smile. I have no problem being a kind and loving father, the problem is only that I do not enjoy it. It’s not that I’m trying to maximize my personal pleasure; it just seems wrong that I experience so little delight when my dad friends all claim to experience so much.

It was beautiful. We live on a picturesque, tree-lined block. I am even relatively relaxed from the holiday rest. Playing catch with your son is supposed to be an iconic, peak experience. Yet for every single minute, on the inside, I just don’t want to be there. I want to be drinking my coffee in peace. Then I feel guilty and absurdly ungrateful, and ashamed, when we’re done. I know that when he is a teenager, I’ll long to have these days back. I have all of this perspective rationally, and I’ve been very patient and steadfast trying to digest it, but nothing fixes me emotionally.

Am I a terrible person? Or is my feeling within a certain range of historically normal and it’s modern parenting norms that are off? Whether it’s my fault or not, I don’t even care, I just want to figure this out. Something is wrong and I no longer have the excuse of being new to this.

Well, Justin, you came to the right place for people with opinions and advice! And boy, has there been a huge reaction to this (which, we sense, Justin wanted!). Here’s just a selection.

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In response to all the attention, Justin posted this:
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That reads:

Man I always forget the fatherhood stuff goes so crazy on the internet…

I’m getting a lot of cruelty, but some of it is fair. Many say I need a therapist but in fact this is obviously way better than a therapist. Brutal, quick, concise, and free—you feel it in your bones when a hater is correct, and just ignore it when they’re not.

Actually, the responses have been extremely illuminating. Here’s my summary of what seems fair and coherent from the war playing out in my replies:

1. There probably is a dopamine issue. I probably do have a phone problem. I tried to stop working for Christmas/New Year and kind of got depressed. There’s a deeper problem here.

2. It’s funny that many people have poked at the 9am time. Of course it was a Saturday on holiday but that’s no excuse; having small kids really does require early wakeup, I’ve always noticed everything goes better when I do that. My wife wakes early with the kids, I often work in the evening, but again I should just be stronger anyway and also wake up earlier every day. This might be the highest-leverage immediate solution hiding in my story and I guess I needed a few people to make fun of me to realize that.

3. People are right to say I should not be so concerned with my own feelings and mental state. I live in my own head way too much; that is indeed unmanly and unbecoming. I just have to keep getting tougher, harder, more focused on doing, and not care how I feel or what I desire in any moment. I should have a sufficiently clear vision for my work and family in the long-run, and just destroy myself bringing that into reality every day. Who cares how anything feels in a moment?

There’s only one thing I will not budge on.

I will always write honestly, in public, about any damn thing I want. If you never write anything that hurts or makes you look bad, then you’re just not a real writer and your judgments mean nothing to me. If I found my dad‘s writings from 20 years ago and they had honest stories about the highs and lows, just raw stuff where he wasn’t trying to make himself look good, but just trying to understand fatherhood honestly and thoughtfully—there’s hardly anything that could make me respect him more. If you can’t understand this, please block me now as we will never have anything to say to each other.

Source: Twitter/X/@jmrphy