Oh, these apps that rank and tally so much of my life — but not everything

On a recent morning, my husband rolled over in bed and showed me his watch.

“Look at that!” he said, triumphant. “I got a sleep score of 98.”

I wanted to tease him, but I was too busy working my way through my 600-day Duolingo streak, in which Duo the owl, Lillie, Zari and the rest of the gang were telling me what a superb job I did translating, “The cow opened the door to the house.”

My son informs me that at this point in my Spanish-language journey I should have advanced to past tense, but that is beside the point. Falstaff the cartoon bear thinks I am doing great.

If you were the kind of over-achieving kid who lived for the straight-A report card, this is a great time to be alive. I will seize every moment to be affirmed, even if that affirmation is fed by an algorithm.

Every hour, my watch reminds me to stand and get moving. When I succeed, it cheers me on. My Peloton app tells me I’m on fire. My Goodreads tracker says I’m five books ahead of my goal for the year — and it’s only March! My day is filled with virtual confetti as I click every pleasing circle on my Streaks app.

Why, when I graduated from college, did I feel a twinge of sadness? I can still be graded, every day, for the rest of my years!

Of course, the flip side to being type-A is that sometimes I fail. I don’t close all my exercise rings. The Streaks app resets and I have to start all over again. Duo weeps if skip a day. (Lo siento, little buddy.)

I am particularly conflicted by the exertion feature on the Apple Watch. It likes to analyze my overall exercise on a sliding scale of easy, moderate or hard. Sometimes, after pounding out 30 minutes on the stair stepper, I agree. That workout was beastly hard.

But sometimes, after a killer mile swim, when I’ve left my heart and soul in the lap lane, I will climb out of the pool breathless and glance at my watch.

Moderate.

Moderate? I am affronted. It’s like having an old high school coach standing on the sidelines who shrugs and says, “I mean, it was OK, but you should have pushed that last 200 meters.”

When I complain to my son, he waits a beat before asking, “Mom, do you feel like you’re going fast?” The answer is yes! When I’m in the water, I envision myself as some great fish torpedoing forward at Katie Ledecky speed.

He pulls up a video of me swimming in the pool. We watch together and can’t help laughing. Actual footage shows me crawling so slowly I might as well be going backward.

This is when I realize: I don’t need a watch or an app to grade me. I have kids! And kids will tell you exactly how you are doing.

Last night’s chicken dinner? Moderate.

Those post-gym biceps? Moderate.

The book you recommended? Boring.

That new hair color? Meh.

And Mom, do you always drive this slow down Coburg Road?

All you need are kids to bring you back to earth and remind you that, like most humans, you are absolutely average.

And sleep? You don’t need a watch to tell you that for two decades of parenting life, you will fail the sleep score. When they are young, every evening plays out like a hostage negotiation, with each side bringing forth their terms of agreement.

When they are teenagers, you stay up late praying that they will come home safe, because you know how fast they drive down Coburg Road. And when they are young adults, they phone you at 10:45 p.m. with a Super Urgent Set of Questions.

The fantastic thing about kids is that they also remind you not everything in life needs to be tallied. A morning hug. A new song playing on the stereo. A surprise gift. A thanks for bringing them a forgotten lunch. Sitting on the couch to debrief about the day.

In an era of super-connectedness, smart homes and tracking, I find myself wanting to put borders around the last few sanctuaries of time and space.

Because when I sit with my family at the dinner table, our phones silenced, the sun setting, the candles lit, the platter of food steaming in front of us, I don’t need a score to tell me the result.

Even if the meal itself is only moderate, the moment is pretty much perfect.