For kids, the playground is a kingdom of swings, slides and endless energy. For many parents, however, it’s more of an endurance test, breaking up squabbles, keeping a watchful eye near the monkey bars and counting down the minutes until it’s time to go home. Dylan Dreyer and Neha Ruch are firmly in the latter camp.
When Ruch, the author of “The Power Pause,” joined Dylan’s podcast, “The Parent Chat,” the conversation turned candid as the two moms bonded over a shared dislike of playground duty.
Dylan bemoaned the chaos of New York City sandboxes, describing the experience of digging through “disgusting” sand for her sons’ buried toys.
Meanwhile, Ruch, a mother of two highly attached children, often found herself trailing them from activity to activity instead of relaxing on the sidelines. Before long, she said, she’d become the de facto supervisor of other kids whose parents were chatting on nearby benches. Her solution? Outsourcing playground duty to a babysitter.
“This makes me feel so seen,” Dylan told Ruch, admitting she often feels out of step with parents who appear perfectly content spending hours at the playground. Instead, she finds herself mentally running through the long list of tasks waiting to be completed.
“My mind’s like, I really need to just go home, and I need to cook dinner, and I want to do this,” she said. “And I’m just sitting here for hours when there is something else I could be enjoying.”
As the discussion continued, the TODAY co-host confessed that she also struggles with imaginative play and often gravitates toward activities that feel more intuitive, like baking, cooking, or tackling a project together.
Rather than viewing that preference as a shortcoming, Ruch encouraged a different perspective. “The fact that you bake — I’m not doing that,” she told Dylan. “But I do really love doing art with them. That fills me up. I enjoy that.” The goal, she argued, isn’t to force enthusiasm for every aspect of raising kids but to find meaningful ways to connect that feel authentic.
“What children really value is presence,” Ruch said in the interview. “It’s not measured in hours. It’s measured in how you show up for your time.”
Ruch appeared on The Parent Chat to discuss “The Power Pause,” her book about rethinking career breaks. Ruch argues that stepping back from paid work doesn’t have to mean putting personal growth on hold, encouraging parents to view caregiving as a chapter that can coexist with long-term professional goals.
