From Meditation To The Children's Summer Holiday
Recently I spent a few weeks abroad. While my reason for the journey was to go on a meditation retreat, I also just needed to get away, to get some perspective on my life, and to see things with a fresh eye when I returned.
I fulfilled those needs, but they were hard won - the distance from my family was very difficult, especially during the retreat which was held in silence. My children were always talking to me in my mind during that time and when I returned home I felt I had a new clarity of how to better manage the time both with and without my children, taking care of my and their needs.
There were three weeks from the time I came home to the opening of the new school year. My wife was working full time, and as a teacher I had the summer off. In the space of a single cross-Atlantic flight I went from no family involvement to total immersion.
One of the biggest challenges in parenthood is to negotiate different needs, and move through the often conflicting schedules of spouses, children and parents. I often swing from feeling swamped and overwhelmed by family life, to missing my family terribly when I’m away for work.
Both my wife and I are people who need a good amount of solo time to come back to ourselves, to create, meditate, read, or even just to clean the house in peace. Of course, when the children are around, they take priority, and we try to do some shift work as parents to free the other up.
One Thing At A Time
I've learned that if I’m in the house while my wife is with the kids, it won’t work - they will find their way to me in a few minutes and be crawling on my lap as I try to type something on the computer. So, I do a lot of my writing from cafes, like I’m doing right now as I type this. But when I’m at home or out with the kids, it’s full attention.
When King Solomon wrote there is a time for everything, he surely would have included a time to play with the children, and a time to talk on the phone with a colleague. When we try to do them at the same time, both the children and the colleague (or whatever else we try to do simultaneously) are short-changed.
I read recently that the average a North American parent plays with his or her child is 47 minutes a week. A week! (Okay, on top of that there is time bathing them, dressing them, being in the house while they play or eat.)
Really Being With Your Children
During the long summer, even with the day camps and endless activities, there are many hours when parents of young children are wondering what to do. I’ve found that the question answers itself when we place our attention on the children more and less on the activity.
Children are experts at making activities and toys from whatever is around them, and if we follow their lead more, we are less obliged to fill the schedule with 'fun' things. What is most fun for a child is the attention we give them, our bare presence, and our ability to be with them in their own games and imagination. It’s the shift we can make from being a human 'doing' (always defined by our activities) back to our namesake of a human 'being.'
Yesterday I bought my small daughter a new stroller for her doll. The old one had broken, and she had been distraught by it for a few days. Since my son was starting a different school and received a new backpack, I thought a new doll stroller would make things even for her.
She was happy with it for five minutes (if that) before it was discarded for something else. It’s a lesson I thought I had already learned, but alas, I needed the reminder again.
There is no toy, television program, activity or food (even ice cream) that will satisfy our children, just as there is no job, vacation, car, i Pod, cell phone that will satisfy us.
It’s the attention we give to our moment and their moment which makes the time blossom into something unexpected, even timeless.
The greatest moments I recall having with my children so far are not the fantastic activities we were doing at a given time - I don’t remember, apart in vague images and from photos, the water park, the hikes, the birthday parties, and so on. But in crystal clear feelings do I celebrate the joy experienced in a quiet moment together, doing nothing special, but revelling in each other’s total presence.