Look Up

On the version of your child who only sticks around for a little while, and the cost of missing it.

I spent the past week in Aspen, Colorado. To me, it’s one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Towering mountains, endless blue skies, rushing rivers, and trails that seemed to stretch on forever. I spent my days hiking, breathing in the cool mountain air, trying to absorb as much of it as I could.

And there were families everywhere. Children skipping down mountain paths with walking sticks they’d found along the way. Racing through town on scooters. Piling into day camps each morning, chattering about the adventures ahead.

Whenever I see children, I think about Sammy. I always do. I’ll look at a baby in a stroller, or a child laughing and running and talking a mile a minute, and the thought arrives on its own. They could die. I don’t choose it. It just shows up. Sometimes I worry it will slip out of my mouth before I can stop it. Of course, I never say it. But after losing a child, you stop taking their existence for granted. You understand something most people are fortunate enough not to think about very often. Everything can change in an instant.

What I kept noticing

As I watched these families, thinking about my own children and thinking about Sammy, I started noticing something else.

The parents were looking at their phones. Constantly.

Every morning on my walk to get coffee, I passed the same mother and her two young daughters heading to day camp. The girls were full of excitement, talking nonstop, pointing things out, bouncing around with that kind of enthusiasm only young children carry. Their mother answered them. But her eyes never left her phone.

I sat on a bench near a park and watched a little boy running circles around his father, jumping off rocks, inventing some elaborate game that seemed enormously important to him. Dad, watch this. Dad, look. Dad, did you see that? His father answered every time. Yep. That’s great. Wow. His eyes never left his phone either.

Near the base of a trail, a boy had collected a pile of sticks and was building what looked like a small fort. He kept running back and forth between his parents and his project, bringing them each a discovery. Look at this one. Look how big this one is. I found another one. His parents smiled and answered while glancing down at their phones, and he kept returning every few minutes, still hopeful they’d eventually stop and come see it for themselves.

It wasn’t a coincidence

By then, I’d seen enough versions of the same scene to know it wasn’t an accident or a one-off. Everywhere I looked, children were reaching for connection, and parents were trying to split their attention between the child in front of them and the device in their hands.

I found myself wanting to walk up to every one of them and gently take the phone out of their hands. Look up. Please look up. Don’t you understand how precious this is? Don’t you understand that everything you think will always be there can disappear?

I know that sounds dramatic. Most of these children will grow up, leave home, and live long, healthy lives. I hope they do. But even if they do, childhood itself is fleeting. The version of your child who still wants to tell you every thought in their head does not stay forever. The version that wants you to watch every jump, every trick, every bug they find on the trail eventually disappears. That season is shorter than any of us are prepared for.

What this teaches a child

Sitting there, watching family after family, a different question started forming. What is this actually doing to our children?

Human beings are wired for connection from the very beginning of life. Babies look for faces. They look for eye contact. They look for someone to engage with them emotionally. Through thousands of small interactions, children learn whether they matter, whether they’re seen, and whether the people they depend on are actually available to them. Those lessons become part of the architecture of the nervous system, part of how they learn to bond and move through the world.

A parent’s attention tells a child something simple and enormous: you are safe, you are important, I am here with you. Children don’t need perfect parents. They don’t need constant attention, every moment of every day. What they need are moments of genuine presence, and the experience that when they reach for connection, someone reaches back.

When a child repeatedly meets divided attention instead, they adapt. Children always adapt. Some get louder. Some stop asking. Some quietly learn that competing with a screen is just part of how love works. Some carry into adulthood an underlying sense that connection is fragile and easily interrupted. And many of them grow up and do the same thing to their own children.

I am not writing this from judgment

I’ve looked at my phone while my children were talking to me. I’ve answered texts when I should have been paying attention. I’ve missed moments too. Every parent has.

What struck me in Aspen wasn’t a single distracted moment. It was the sheer number of them, one after another, until it felt like entire childhoods were unfolding quietly in the background while the adults stared into their devices.

Watching those children, I kept thinking about Sammy because there is nothing I wouldn’t give for one more walk, one more question, one more interruption, one more story that took too long to tell. One more chance to look him in the eyes.

Most of us believe we have more time. We assume there will be another hike, another conversation, another summer. Usually, there is. But sometimes there isn’t.

So this week, surrounded by all that beauty, I kept coming back to a simple thought.

Look up. There is beauty all around you. Your child is beautiful, too. And they are waiting for you to see them.

When was the last time your child had your full attention, no phone, no half-listening, just you? It might be worth noticing the next time they ask you to look.