Adults do not spend time with children. They invest it.
Adults, especially parents, invest either enough or not enough time with their children. Either they invest wisely or not so wisely. They invest either what’s left over, or they invest with an enthusiasm that comes from knowing it is their most important investment.
Spending means that something is spent but not necessarily well spent. Investment means something comes back, and something always comes back from time invested with children.
The return is not always quick or clear. It can take years and remain ambiguous. But neither time lags nor ambiguity change the fact that there is always a return.
In fact, learning to live with feedback that comes slowly and in diffuse ways helps many parents mature. They become more comfortable waiting, and that’s called patience. They become more comfortable with a lack of clarity, and that’s called less controlling.
Both are personal returns from investments in children.
Many parents instinctively and quietly know about the importance of time with their children. But many struggle with it even though it isn’t a new idea.
For years experts have pointed out relationships between good parenting and time invested. In 1978, M. Scott Peck wrote in “The Road Less Traveled,” “Good discipline requires time. When we have no time to give to our children, or no time that we are willing to give, we don’t even observe them closely enough. … The time and the quality of time that their parents devote to them indicate to children the degree to which they are valued by their parents.”
Twenty years later, Sylvia Hewlett and Cornel West state in their book “The War Against Parents”: “Across the face of this nation, parents’ central and increasingly desperate concern revolves around a time crunch. … Mothers and fathers battle with what they call ‘a parental time famine.’”
A story in The Herald on March 29 about the American family said a study by the University of California at Los Angeles shows that families with two working parents have dramatic time squeezes. This study takes it further and asks how the lack of family time changes the ways parents use time they do have together. Unstructured time gets sacrificed, the article says. So do playtime, conversations, courtesy and intimacy. Great losses.
One family was described in the article as teaching their children to multitask. Their school-age children learn to study in the back seat as they ride from soccer practices to a music lessons. Their car is packed with snacks, sports equipment and changes of clothes.
This family believes, or said they believe, that keeping children busy is “a key to being a successful adult in a culture that rewards multitaskers.”
Obviously, this family values success as measured by their view of the American culture.
A new cookbook, “Pace of Provence” by Yolande Hoisington, argues for the social and physical benefits of preparing and eating good meals. “It makes sense to involve children in meal planning. … Eating together is important,” Hoisington says, “but preparing food together is rewarding as well.”
I have written columns on the benefits of hauling school-age children and their friends between home, school, turnouts and lessons.
Children in the back seat of a car will forget that there is an adult driving and will talk intimately to each other. Children riding alone with their parents will say things they won’t say face-to-face.
A friend was attending a men’s study group where they discussed the importance of being a good husband and father. Suddenly, in an epiphany, he realized he was spending Saturday morning away from his wife and children and never went back to the group.
Parents’ time with their children is at a premium. They must compete with the world for their own children’s attention and loyalty. Parents’ choices about how to invest that time must be made thoughtfully.
Bill France, a father of three, is a child advocate in the criminal justice system and has worked as director of clinical programs at Luther Child Center in Everett. He is on the Snohomish County Child Death Review Committee and the Advisory Board for the Tulalip Children’s Advocacy Center. You can send e-mail to bill@billfrance.com.
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