This week on Should I Care? we (Sophie Griffiths & Ruthie Walmsley) start with the children's social media ban that's all over the news, & end up somewhere we didn't plan to: the boundaries we swear we want & then break by teatime.

Because here's the uncomfortable bit..we know boundaries are good for us. We've read the books, done the therapy, we can recite the theory back to you word for word. & we still take the phone to the sofa, still answer the DM at bedtime, still miss the 4:30 finish we set that same morning. Wanting the boundary was never the problem but holding it is.

The social media ban for under 16’s cracked it open, because the sneaky thing about any rule someone else sets is the little flicker of relief underneath it. Someone else holds the line, so we don't have to decide, negotiate or feel guilty about it. & once we clocked that in relation to our kids, we couldn't stop seeing it everywhere: the 4:30 finish that never happens, the work that follows us into bedtime, the offers we over-stuff & then can't scale, the invisible deadlines nobody set but us.

Plus a report back from last week on using AI to carry some of the mental load: LEGOLAND intel, a fully themed birthday party sorted from one voice memo, & the calendar app Ruthie is vibe coding so she never has to be the family PA again.

In this episode:

• The relief sitting inside the Social Media ban for our kids & the our version of it from COVID
• Why Sophie has a therapist who specialises in boundaries & the thread that ends at "if I drop a ball, I'm unlovable"
• Ruthie's real-time Tuesday dilemma: football with her son, or the work she's convinced can't wait (even though nobody actually asked for it today)
• The "I can't" to "I don't" swap that changes everything, & the "I have to" to "I get to" reframe sitting right next to it
• Over-delivering yourself into a corner: the beta trap, the pricing that punishes you, & why piling on more bonuses isn't the fix

New episodes every Tuesday.

Follow Sophie: @sophiegriffithsco & Ruthie: @firstpersonnarrative