I checked my son’s face before I checked the school app

Dear Delyara, That felt like progress. Usually the app gets in first — reminders, forms, trips, warnings, tiny institutional ways of colonising the emotional space of home before the child has even properly arrived in it. But today, when he got in the car, I looked at his face first. Tired. A little drawn. Trying not to make something a thing. So I left the phone alone. That changed the whole drive home. Maybe motherhood at this stage is learning how often the official information matters less than the expression on your child’s face at 3:18 p.m.