I’d been playing around with ChatGPT one evening, asking it to write some poems. The writing was as expected: generic, humorless, emotionless, and oddly formal. But amid its stiff prose were glimmers of beauty.
This beauty haunted me. When I closed my eyes at night, I could see it upending my career in a year. Writing has always been there for me.
I’ve written during yoga sessions, during pap smears, at the beach. I decided if AI was coming for my career, at least there were still parts of my life it couldn’t touch: my marriage, my young daughter. Or could it? So much of parenting a young child is physical: Breastfeeding, kissing, snuggling.
But other parts are tactical: scheduling, meal planning, choosing activities. AI didn’t have a body (yet), but it could still plan; it could organize; it could offer ideas on soothing a sobbing kid. Advertisement Though my husband is a wonderful, loving dad, he works in another state, so I spend a lot of time parenting alone.
I wondered how ChatGPT could fare as a coparent. From using it during writing, I realized ChatGPT, more than Google or Dr. Becky’s Instagram stories , could get to know you; it could grasp your worries and needs.
Plus, my friends were probably sick of me panic-texting them every five minutes asking if my baby could die from eating the carpet. Maybe ChatGPT could preserve my shaky standing in my college group text. I started with a basic prompt: How could I get my sweet daughter to stop screaming inconsolably every time I left the room (or walked to the fridge, or turned my head away from her)? ChatGPT promptly responded with a list of ideas: gradual separation, establishing a goodbye routine, using a comfort object.
These were some solid ideas, but I’d already tried them. “Too generic” I told the blank text box. The AI model apologized and then came up with a new idea: offering my daughter a small item with my scent or a family photo she could cling to.
I began with a shirt lightly scented with my night sweat. For so long, all that could soothe my daughter was my breast. It was a spiritual, hormonal comfort.
The only comfort that could get through to her. I wasn’t sure if a shirt carrying a faint trace of me would be enough but decided it would have to be. My nipples were raw and red.
She couldn’t latch onto them forever. Advertisement When I gave my daughter the shirt, she thought of it as a joke, throwing it over her head, blinding herself. She convulsed in laughter as she stumbled around in the fabric, crashing into the furniture and her babysitter.
As she tripped around in her new dark world, I made my sly exit up the stairs. I tried the same tactic later that day, but this time she shoved it back to me, sobbing. She could already sense what was to come: abandonment, betrayal.
“This isn’t working,” I told ChatGPT, which suggested I see a behavioral specialist. Not helpful. But to be honest, I was relieved AI didn’t have all the answers either.
Nonetheless, it kept creeping its way back into my parenting. The next morning, at the pediatrician’s office, my daughter was wriggling in my arms, about to lose it. Having forgotten any baby books or toys, I asked ChatGPT to author a baby book about my daughter’s main passions in life: Cookie Monster, blueberries, and dogs.
This was the result: Once upon a time in a cozy kitchen, Cookie Monster and his fluffy dog friend, Blueberry, discovered a magical basket of blueberries. Together, they baked scrumptious blueberry cookies, filling their home with the sweet aroma of friendship and treats. As they shared cookies with their playful puppy pals, the delightful adventures of Cookie Monster, Blueberry, and their canine companions unfolded, creating a tale sprinkled with joy, laughter, and the joyous taste of blueberry delights.
Advertisement The hokey writing unsettled me. But at 8:30 in the morning, I had to work with what I had. I read my daughter the story with this demented, off-key delivery I knew she loved.
“More!” she urged, furiously. After a few more unhinged readings, I decided to test out a new theory. I read my daughter her vaccination forms but with the same wackadoo delivery I’d used to read the AI story.
“ More, more, more! ” she continued pleading, bubbling over with laughter. It was then I realized it wasn’t AI’s dull prose that had pulled her in; it was me. My daughter didn’t need generic parenting hacks or stories written by algorithms.
What she needed was a mother — or at least someone who knew precisely how to make her laugh. Rachel Ament is a writer and editor living in Maryland..
