I’m Down to the Last Kid in My House

Last night my 15-year-old and I took our positions in the family room – him, spread out on the couch and me, folded into a nearby chair – armed with a tin of Trader Joe’s Jingle Jangle and a remote control. A few minutes earlier, he had yelled for me to hurry up – he thought I was taking too long cleaning the kitchen after dinner – and by the time I joined him, my son had already turned off all the lights in the room and queued the movie we’d agreed to watch on Amazon.

He pressed play on the...