One of the things I admire most about my Dad is his work ethic. He started his career working in the tanneries of the Merrimack Valley, back in the heyday when that area was a booming center of manufacturing and production. More often than not he would work at least one weekend day, usually Saturday, and when he wasn't working at his job he was working in the yard. Somewhere along the way one of his managers recognized that my Dad had the right skillset to go into sales, so they gave him a shot and he never looked back. Once he hit this phase of his career, he was traveling up to 50% of the time and in later years started his own company, which he ran until his retirement a few years ago.
During this time he missed some of my baseball games and practices, there were school events he couldn't attend and there were many times when we said "good night" via telephone, but I never felt cheated or slighted in any way. In fact, quite the opposite... I saw how hard he worked and knew that he was doing it for us. Whenever he came home from a trip, we would invariably go out to the back yard and toss around the football or the baseball and catch-up on the events of the past week. It just seemed natural... the way things are.
I'm not sure if times have changed or if it's my own sense of parental guilt, but I feel like the call to be "SuperParent" today is pervasive and unrealistic. I have friends and acquaintances whose children's lives are so packed with extracurricular activities that they keep a spreadsheet tacked to the refrigerator, color-coded with which child is going to which event and which parent is responsible for taking care of transportation. Weekends are back-to-back multi-sport affairs, games with traveling teams and other such events. Everything is scheduled, every minute of the day is mapped-out and the parents are forced to run from the office to the ballfield to the McDonald's drive-thru with stopwatch precision. Missing a game or a practice is unheard of and inexcusable.
When a child becomes passionate about a sport or activity, it's critical to feed that enthusiasm and encourage participation. Some of life's greatest lessons can be learned on the ballfield - focus, drive, determination, teamwork, etc. However, there are equally important (and perhaps even greater) lessons which can be learned off the ballfield as well. Simply stated, kids need time to be kids and scheduling every waking moment cheats children out of a something that is vital to their long-term success and health. Having downtime to read a book, play in the backyard, draw, write creatively... all of these activities enable children to stretch their minds and ensure that their brains are as fit as their bodies.
Spending time and taking an active interest in their lives is what I consider to be one of my most important and most enjoyable jobs as a parent. I also feel that my kids need to know - in no uncertain terms - that they're the most important thing in my life, but that I have other responsibilities which need to be honored. This is one area where my personal parenting philosophy comes in direct conflict with what seems to be the way the world is turning these days. My wife, God bless her, has the most important job in the world: being a full-time Mom... but that means the household income rests firmly upon my shoulders. I love having this responsibility and we wouldn't have it any other way, but it also means that often times my job simply has to come first. I can't make every practice, coach every team, spend my evenings and weekends bouncing from the baseball diamond to the hockey rink to the karate dojo. It's just too much.
When I come home from work or when I have free time on the weekends, I want to spend that time interacting with them for longer than the 15 minutes it takes to drive from one place to another. I want to know about what is happening at school, what they do with their friends during recess and what is on their minds. Maybe I'm just being selfish or maybe I haven't been able to crack the code of balancing work, life and multi-sport parenting, but I am jealous and protective of family time.
A few years ago we tried to go with the flow - to follow the herd and say 'yes' to our kids' multi-activity requests - and it was the most miserable three months for everyone. My son was playing baseball and soccer and my daughter was playing soccer and had other activities as well. At the time, we only had two kids so we could do the divide-and-conquer routine better than we can today, but it was still exhausting. I was also an assistant coach for the boy's soccer team which meant that I needed to get to the field early and help to get things set-up and get the pre-game practice started. Saturdays were spent rushing from one end of town to the other, practices a couple of nights during the week... no one was having fun. The few free hours that we had on the weekend to just be a family - to take a day trip to the zoo, watch a movie together or simply just play a board game or two - were often times filled with other commitments to our extended family or attending one of the many birthday parties which seemed to occur on a weekly basis.
After that season, my wife and I made a new rule: one activity at a time. It's sometimes tough, especially when their friends' schedules are jam-packed, but on the whole it has been working for us. I think there's a great lesson to be learned by forcing the 'or' instead of indulging the 'and.' My son can play baseball or take karate. My daughter can take dance class or play soccer. This approach gives them time to be kids, it gives us time to be Mom & Dad instead of a taxi service and - most of all - collectively it gives us time to be a family.
The past year has been particularly hectic for me on the career front. Although I'm traveling far less than I have in previous years, I have been working longer hours and will often get up in the middle of the night so I can work while everyone else is asleep. (I know it's not a sustainable model over the long term, but it allows me to have my cake and eat it too - spend time with the family and still crank through a lot of projects.) I rarely make it home for dinner during the week but once I'm home I can just relax with the family. We do homework, read books, watch Animal Planet... all of the stuff that seems so trivial and mundane but I sincerely miss when we're too busy to just enjoy such downtime.
My son is starting up baseball season so there will be a couple of nights each week which will be spent at the ballfield, but it's not a constant and it still leaves him time to be the wonderful silly nine-year-old that he is. My daughter has her afternoon dance class during the week, so there are no conflicts and she'll spend a couple of evenings running around the playground with her buddies while my wife and I entertain the baby and cheer on my oldest son from the bleachers. The concept of activities in moderation seems to be the best path for us and is good.
I'm sure I will not be able to make it to every game or practice, but my oldest is of an age where he's starting to understand that I work so hard because I love the family so much - not because I love my job more. I am so blessed to wake up every day and do work about which I am passionate and enjoy even during the challenging times, but it is a means to an end. He realizes that things like houses and vacations and eventually college tuition requires money and that money comes from Dad's office. (And he has already stated his intent to attend M.I.T. when he's 17. Heaven help me to make those payments!) He also knows that when I can't be around to do all of the fun bits, it's by necessity and not by choice... and as he grows older, there's a valuable lesson in that as well.
At the end of the day, I'm not sure where all of this is leading. He may look back at this time with fondness and respect and realize that Dad was working his tail off to provide for the family, just as I often look back in awe and wonder at my Dad. Then again he may end-up sobbing on a therapist's couch somewhere, detailing how Dad ruined his life. Who knows. My dearest wish is that he falls somewhere in-between - recognizing the things I did right, understanding how he would like to do things differently with his kids and, ultimately, blazing his own trail through this world. I'm slowly starting to realize that this parenting thing is more art than science and finding the balance that works for our family makes all the difference in the world.
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