| The clock in Jeff’s car
glows 6:40 P.M. as he rolls into the driveway after another
long and tiring day at work. He opens the door to his home
with a weary sigh and drops the mail next to the answering
machine, which is blinking in that incessant, anxious way
that demands listening. All he wants is a relaxing evening
with no bosses, clients, or coworkers to please.
He peeks into his wife’s home office and greets her
warmly. As they chat about their day, she asks if he’d
mind fixing dinner so she can finish up a few things. “No
problem,” he assures her. Before heading to the kitchen,
he pauses to savor a moment’s peace, silently planning
out the next few hours: check the mail, listen to messages,
take a nice hot shower, change into sweats, fix a quick dinner
. . .
“Hi, Daddy! Play with me?” Snapped out of his
reverie, Jeff puts on a smile and bends to wrap a hug around
the giggling little angel with the hopeful eyes. He twirls
her around in big circles and plants kisses on her nose. “Hey,
my little Lily-flower!” he croons. He buries his nose
in her soft hair, loving the little-child feel and scent of
her. Laughing with glee, Lily cherishes these sparkling moments
in her daddy’s arms; craving more, she implores, “Play
with me?”
“Hey, punkin’, I have some things to do; then
we’ll play later.”
“Just a little while, Daddy?” she pleads
with a smile. But looking at his face, she suddenly knows
he’d never drop everything just for some silly play,
but she can’t help asking one last time. When the expected
answer comes, she wanders off resignedly to watch the TV show
that’s always on at this time, always on for her when
Daddy’s not.
Lily watches her program, all the while counting the minutes
on the clock. Jeff loses himself in the mail, the newspaper,
and the answering machine, looking forward to the completion
of all his daily responsibilities so that he can play with
his daughter. After some time on the computer reading E-mail,
he trudges upstairs, loosening his tie. He can almost feel
the steamy warmth of the shower, the comfort of those old
sweats, the . . . wait, what is this?
He turns to find a beaming little girl, who’d sneaked
up the stairs behind him, given away by the soft thumping
of her tiny feet. She musters all the vocal sweetness that
she imagines a good girl to have and asks, “Can we play
now, Daddy?” She doesn’t want to bother
him, doesn’t want to pester. She just wants him close
to her, laughing his silly laugh just for her.
What Jeff hears is persistence—a trait he will someday
appreciate in her as an adult, but one that annoys him today.
So, with a ruffle of her hair, he dismisses her with strained
patience. “In a little bit, Lily. Why don’t you
go ask Mommy if she can play with you now?”
Not so easily put off, she is in position at the bottom of
the stairs when he descends some time later. Her little face
is fairly bursting with the effort of holding back her request.
She doesn’t want to annoy him, doesn’t want to
be inconvenient, doesn’t want to be bad—and so,
says nothing, hoping he’ll remember his promise to play
“later.”
But he doesn’t.
“Ready for some dinner?” he asks, walking quickly
past her in an effort to stave off a few repeats of her “Want
to play?” chorus. He enters the kitchen and begins
pulling items from the refrigerator. Just then, the telephone
rings, and little ears listen—as they always do—as
Jeff answers. “Hello? Hey, Steven. How are ya? Great.
Did you catch the game Sunday? I can’t believe he missed
that play . . . ” And so he is lost to her again, this
time to adult conversation, phone tucked between ear and shoulder.
Maybe if I’m just quiet and smile real big,
Lily thinks. So she looks up at him with every fiber of her
being poured into her smile, every good thing in her soul
spilling from her eyes. Still on the phone, her daddy smiles
back vacantly and plops a plate of dinner down for his daughter,
then disappears into his wife’s office with a plate
for her, too. Lily’s best smile fades as she quietly
eats her dinner to the hum of Daddy’s voice on the phone.
Afterward, of course, the parents are busy. There’s
dinner to be cleaned up, garbage to be taken out, bills to
pay . . . And all the while, Jeff’s little one—who
naturally will not be little forever—patiently and proudly
waits beside her latest Lego masterpiece. She just knows
he’ll notice it soon. She knows it’s the marvel
of engineering brilliance sure to draw him into her world.
But the doorbell rings, and Jeff strides right past her to
answer. Perhaps after the visitor leaves, she wonders . .
.
It’s Rahul, their neighbor. He needs help getting his
lawn tractor started. “Hate to bother you, Jeff, but
you think you might have a second to look at it?”
“Of course,” Jeff replies, his thoughts registering
the day last week when Rahul was there at 6:00 A.M. to jump-start
Jeff’s car. “That’s what good neighbors
are for.”
After letting his wife know where he’s bound, he reaches
down to plant kisses on his daughter’s soft cheeks.
“Be right back, punkin’,” he says. And he
leaves too quickly to notice the silent tears that have begun
to run down those same cheeks so hastily kissed, soft cheeks
that are soon buried in pillows. When Jeff returns, she is
asleep, dreaming of moving out and becoming a neighbor who
could ring the doorbell, call Daddy on the phone, and send
E-mails to him.
The Hidden Message
“You are not as important to me as the mail, the messages,
the dinner, the phone call or the neighbor. I love you, but
I’m too busy for you—and there’s always
later, there’s always tomorrow.”
Think About It
Children perceive time, and what we do with it, differently
from the way adults do. By about age thirty, we adults barely
notice the precious seconds. In the currency of time, they’re
merely pennies, hardly able to buy anything of value. For
little ones, however, every moment is weighty with possibility
and so passes heavily and slowly. Consider, for instance,
the evening that we just witnessed—it passed particularly
slowly for the little girl but it blew past the man who is
her father.
Seconds become minutes, of course, and minutes become hours.
And imperceptibly, hours become decades. One day, Jeff may
turn around to play with his little girl, only to find a young
woman too busy tending her own life to notice—after
all, she has learned by his example. What a common tragedy!
Ask any parent of grown children, and he or she invariably
will attest to how fast it all goes. As the popular maxim
forewarns: One comment you’ll never hear on a person’s
deathbed is “I wish I’d have put in more overtime.”
Instead, we all know the final plea is much more likely to
be for more time with those whose love fills and sustains
us. The hard truth is that we have only a relatively small
sliver of time in which to give our children the gifts of
our experience, patience, wisdom, and heart.
Naturally, obligations intrude on our every day. We perceive
these obligations from an adult point of view, sorting through
them, prioritizing as we go. We give a potential interruption
to our mental calendars a quick once-over and make a snap
decision: adjust the plan, or stick to it? But however we
triage the callings in our lives, time marches on. The work
gets done. The meals get prepared.
The house gets cleaned. Things work out. Of necessity, we
allot time for the chores that keep us fed, clothed, clean;
these things push themselves into our plans by their very
nature. Other items seize our attention with their urgency—a
flashing message machine, a ringing phone, a buzzing doorbell.
Certain activities, however, don’t call to us so loudly.
Yet, these can have an impact more profound than all the others
combined: activities such as walking in a park, visiting relatives,
tossing a baseball…or building a Lego city. These are
the experiences that build up a soul.
What would happen if, today, all parents made their children
their top priority? Nowadays, we often complain about teenagers
and their lack of respect for adults, and we worry about the
anger and lack of direction that seems to plague them to the
point of violence. Yet I meet many parents who tell me that
their teenagers are wonderful young people, and that
they enjoy their children now, just as they always
have. Therein lies an important lesson: We need to begin,
right now, at this very moment, to see each second as a gift,
as an opportunity to savor where we all are now—
whether we do this by playing, chatting, or simply being together
with our children. In so doing, we may weave a lifeline that
continues to hold throughout the years. When that Lego city
gets built, so does the foundation to a future. And a minute
of time for a child will someday be worth its equivalent in
hours to the adult she becomes. The time we spend with our
children at this very moment—nurturing, teaching and
loving them—is the substance that helps mold them into
the people that they will become.
Changes You Can Make
Review the priorities in your life, make a list of your top
five, and begin investing the bulk of your time and energy
in those choices. If you are a parent, your list—of
course—should include your children. Keep your list
of five handy, and refer to it whenever a decision arises.
Ask yourself, “Does what I am doing, or about to
do, fit into my list of priorities?”
Unlike much advice, this way of living is not “easier
said than done.” On the contrary, it’s “easier
done than said”! You’ll often be surprised to
discover that it doesn’t take hours to fill a child’s
need for attention.
Sometimes fifteen minutes will fill your child’s cup—and
then allow you to tend to your daily rituals without that
nagging sense of guilt, or that feeling that something essential
is missing. In this story of Jeff and Lily, if he had dropped
everything upon his arrival home and given Lily thirty minutes
of undivided attention, he might have fulfilled her need for
his love. She might then have been happy to scamper off and
allow him to get to his business, or perhaps trailed along
with him, letting their connection linger through the evening.
Of course, some daily tasks must be done regardless of their
placement of your list. The laundry would definitely not
be in my top five, but it still needs to be done! However,
having your list will help ensure that these “maintenance’’
tasks are done with the proper acknowledgement of their importance.
This means that I may decide that a game of Monopoly with
my children is worth postponing the laundry until after they’ve
gone to bed.
As for those must-do tasks, some can be undertaken with a
child included as helper or as company—a three-year-old
can sit beside you with her plastic kitchen set “preparing”
her own dinner, as you prepare dinner for the family; a five-year-old
can sort socks or fold hand towels as you fold the other laundry;
a seven-year-old can accompany you on your round of errands.
In each case, you will very likely enjoy the time talking
together.
When you decree that your family and your children are your
priority, and that you want, and need, to spend more time
with them, your daily decisions will become easier. You may
even begin to ascertain that some goals you had rated as “top
priority” are supremely unimportant. And as a natural
and direct effect, these will fall away, leaving you with
two undeniable gains: a heightened and refined sense of values,
and the freedom to pursue them.
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