At the ballgame, AI stays open for boys

using AI – In the bleachers, a tech PR mother doesn’t hide how she uses AI—she puts it right in view while her three sons watch, question, and learn. The family’s day-to-day approach mixes practical tutoring, skepticism about errors, and a push to swap doomscrolling for

It’s the bottom of the third inning, and she’s on her phone.

Her boys play travel baseball, the kind where nothing happens for long stretches and you can lose hours just watching. In that time—about 4. 000 hours on the bleachers—she has written code for her AI startup. rehearsed answers for an investor interview. pressure-tested a crisis comms plan. and argued with Claude about the infield fly rule.

Her kids see her do it.

The family’s choice is simple: AI is not treated like something to sneak behind closed doors. It’s introduced as a tool, used in real time, and discussed like one.

Her husband, Pete, used to spend his free time on social platforms—X, Instagram, Slack, and group chats. Before AI, he struggled to quiet his mind through passive digital consumption. Since he started using AI, he has given up social media entirely.

Now, the phone in their house shows something different. Pete spends his free time talking with Claude—interrogating ideas. using them to build things. and working through business problems that used to “rattle around” in his head. Their children don’t see doomscrolling anymore; they see adults thinking out loud.

The tool then becomes part of daily education at the level the kids can test and understand. Her eldest son, Dash (13), has a Claude subscription and has started building complex games on Roblox. When 7th-grade geometry gets too difficult for his parents, AI acts as his math tutor.

Dash told his mother that Claude helps with school work. but he is also aware of a risk many adults don’t dwell on: kids can use it to cheat on assignments and tests. He also shows skepticism where adults might be more trusting. He complains that AI search results are often wrong. He gave an example from when he tried to look up the specs for an e-bike model and was confidently lied to.

He doesn’t just question accuracy—he also watches for signs of fabrication. He rolls his eyes at what he calls “obviously fake” AI-generated videos, pointing to spelling mistakes in captions, people appearing to be levitating, and poor lip-syncing.

“I haven’t been fooled yet,” he told her proudly.

Her own relationship with AI is shaped by the speed at which dramatic stories about new technology can spread—stories about “world-ending” outcomes that rarely match what it feels like day to day. She says she is still fearful of what might happen to her kids’ future jobs. and of whether they will be able to think critically or solve problems as adults.

But in their house, the response is intentional engagement rather than avoidance. They use AI deliberately to better understand it, which, she argues, makes her fear it less. She also describes swapping “lower-quality attention” for “higher-quality attention.”

For her, the practical payoff is part of the case. Before a family trip. they used to spend hours down TripAdvisor rabbit holes. half-reading travel blogs written by people trying to sell luggage. Now. in the rental car. they listen to a history podcast—and ask Claude for the top five things to know about wherever they’re going.

Last summer. driving into Alberobello. they were prepared to step into what she describes as a UNESCO village of 1. 500-year-old trulli: stone huts built without mortar so peasants could dismantle them fast when tax collectors came. The family could have Googled it. Instead, she says, pulling up Claude and asking questions on the fly turned sightseeing into a conversation.

Even her 72-year-old dad—who had “never touched AI” before the trip—became a “power user.”

She doesn’t claim certainty. She says she doesn’t know whether their family is atypical. and she admits that. as with most parenting decisions. it may be too early to say whether she’s miscalculated and ends up as the cautionary tale she could easily be described as: a mom on her phone. missing the game. later surprised by device addiction.

What she does know, in that moment on the field, is more immediate than any forecast.

When the top of the fourth inning is up, and her son is stepping into the batter’s box, she puts down the phone.

AI Claude parenting travel baseball education startup crisis communications technology media habits Roblox geometry Alberobello UNESCO trulli