Spend More Time With the Kids

"Because eventually your child won't be six"

“There are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer, poet, and philosopher

For their younger years, I was out the door before the kids woke up. These days, I’m still up early but it’s to make their porridge, not rush off to work. I figure that being physically and emotionally present is just about the greatest gift you can give a child and semi-retirement has allowed me to focus more on spending quality time with them. OK, maybe breakfast time doesn’t really count as “quality time,” but as Bill Perkins poignantly puts it in Die With Zero, ”You can’t keep delaying time with your six-year-old, because eventually your child won’t be six. Or seven. Or a child.”

I’ve found it rewarding to get more involved in their lives. My advice? Volunteer for everything:

• My favourite was donning the bright orange high-vis and joining them on road patrol as a supervisor. I treated it like a low-brow stand-up comedy gig, commenting on what kids were wearing (“another Spiderman!”), joking about charging people to cross, etc and my kids were too young to be completely embarrassed.

• Attend their sporting events, and volunteer there too—scramble to look up drills half-an-hour before training as a touch rugby coach, wear a rainbow wig as a cross country marshall, measure how far they can throw a vortex at Athletics Day.

• Help out at every school camp; it’s a unique window into their lives as they interact with classmates “in the wild”.

• Be there when they burst through the door after school, and show them you’re genuinely happy to see them.

• Say “yes” more often.

• Teach them practical skills like cooking (I’ve found HelloFresh helpful with their easy-to-follow recipes).

• Get them enthused about the outdoors.

• Squeeze the juice out of public holidays, long weekends and school holidays by planning fun adventures in advance.

You get the idea.

That said, you have to be careful not to smother your children with too much attention either. It’s not healthy for any of you if your life revolves around them, especially if you overparent by removing every challenge, making every decision, and never allowing them to fail. Besides, kids can be boring at times (especially when telling stories that never end or asking endless questions) and being a chauffeur and chaperone isn’t that fulfilling. Maybe a bit of underparenting is the way to go sometimes. "If it's not bleeding or on fire, it's fine."

It’s not always smooth sailing; some days, the dinner table conversation is non-stop nagging about using utensils or eating vegetables. It’s draining when they complain about having to shower, or “pre-whine” about tramping or mountain biking days in advance, or endlessly bicker. I often have to remind myself that raising well-rounded, independent, and resilient young adults is about playing the long game. Decades’ long.

Finally, I do worry about modelling hard work to my kids. When they look at me, what do they see? Some bum who hangs around the house all day? On the other hand, it’s not like I sit around all day playing video games and getting high. I try to model what it means to be a good member of our community, and to lead a healthy, disciplined, structured, active lifestyle. They’ll probably turn out OK. Although the girl child wants to be a CEO when she grows up, just so she can be rich. All my “money isn’t everything” speeches aren’t budging her. Yet.

Silliness at Christmas

Next week, a lot more about giving back..