This is what time is for

Life tried to give me a wake-up call about my parenting on Friday (although the application really applies to all meaningful relationships). I decided to spend a day with my nine-year-old daughter, and enjoy Chicago’s city centre.

First, we missed the bus and instead of waiting for the next one, we opted to walk 35 minutes to our initial destination: my daughter’s favourite French café for croissants. What a gift. As we started walking up Wacker Drive and then along the Chicago River walkway on a beautiful, sunny August day, she told me about her recent falling out with a friend. I thought I’d heard the story already but was humbled by what a difference it makes when you have a lot of time, the right environment, and no interruptions. Once we got to Pierre Gourmet the conversation continued in my favourite environment – over coffee.

I was quite alarmed by everything she shared and how much I didn’t know. And it went much deeper than that. I learned that she had never had a true friendship with this other girl. On the contrary, my daughter’s kindness and willingness to forgive - which we’d worked so hard to instil - was totally taken advantage of. She was manipulated and, frankly, bullied in the end. She was scared of this other girl and essentially spent months pretending to be friends with her. I can’t imagine how hard that was for her. ?And she bottled it all up until finally she couldn’t anymore.

It was sobering and disturbing to hear how much pain and fear my daughter had lived in – and she probably masked a lot of it so as not to bother her overly-busy, overly-distracted parents. Damn. How had we been so unaware of what was really going on? I know the pictures make it look like a typical Instagram-worthy fun daddy-daughter day, but that’s because I felt like some divine power had scooped me up and rescued me from getting a C- in my parenting class for her first 10 years of life by teaching me what not to do for the next decade.

There was also joy – for me – in feeling like there were no boundaries to our time. Normally I feel like she starts talking to me and I'm almost always on my way to do something else, so I hardly pause to hear her. This forces her to reel mentally as she pivots into trying to communicate with me in soundbites before I keep walking. “Sorry I have a meeting in five minutes,”, “Sorry I have to go and get some cat food,” “Sorry, I need to check in with your mum on something.” In my mind during the school year, I do get extra time by often driving her to school (25 minutes) but it’s embarrassing to write publicly that somehow, I consider her talking in the backseat to the back of my head is a substitute for proper conversation and quality time together.

“This is the best breakfast ever!” my daughter exclaimed a few times, which we know was her way of saying “thanks for listening”. ?It also helped that I’m reading Stolen Focus by Johann Hari which talks about how badly distracted we all are nowadays, so I made a point not to keep looking at my phone other than to briefly share a few pictures of the never-to-be-forgotten day.

At some point on that morning walk, I was reminded of a line I once read, probably from Robert Holden: Sometimes people just need a good listening to.

I realise this can all sound rather obvious, but the painful lesson life was trying to teach me was to make more time for interactions like this and, perhaps, to remind you too. Self-deceit is something we are all guilty of and our culture, our media use all their technical and intellectual genius to distract us, keep us on what Hari calls the “ceaselessly shrieking screens” and away from meaningful interaction and real life.

I had convinced myself that I was tuned in quite well to how my daughter was feeling but I was mostly scratching the surface. The first thing I did was to make sure I freed up a day to do this with my son this coming week before he goes back to school and, fortunately, I already had such a day scheduled with my wife (yesterday). It’s a start. What I wish for you is not to be making my mistakes. Who deserves your full time and attention?

To timelessness with our VIPs,

Matt

Copyright Matt Anderson, 2023