I have spent more mental energy on meal planning than I have on most major career decisions. I wish I were joking.

You would think that in a country where I can get same-day delivery of specialty vitamins and a subscription box for razor refills, someone would have figured out how to help working parents feed their families without losing their minds. But here we are.

No time.
No bandwidth.
No solution.

Every week, it’s the same drag: What’s for dinner? Who’s home? Will the babysitter cook or just reheat? Who hates onions? Who suddenly won’t eat chicken? Are there enough leftovers for tomorrow’s lunch? Is this nutritionally sound or just beige carbs and vibes? Do I have the energy to chop something or should I microwave it and hope for the best?

And don’t get me started on the endless scroll of “easy 15-minute family meals” written by people who clearly don’t feel the psychic pressure I do when it comes to cooking. The prep alone is half the battle—and that’s before someone announces they’re not hungry or “it tastes weird.”

The repetition is brutal. The decision fatigue is real. And the emotional labor of thinking about everyone else’s preferences, allergies, schedules, and needs is enough to make a person want to live on protein bars and resentment.

It feels like a solvable problem—one that capitalism should have addressed by now. But the market keeps giving us more noise, more apps, more influencers trying to sell pre-chopped onions or curated spice kits. What we need is something deeper: a real shift in how we support working parents, how we feed families, how we share domestic labor.

Until then, I’m just here, staring into the fridge, exhausted and uninspired, hoping that whatever I pull together tonight feels like enough.

Because most nights, that’s the goal: just enough.