time out
Playing. Just playing
Stop tasking and enjoy some time with the kids L e a H a nson
I
n more ways than one, I am slowly but surely turning into my mother. I find myself striking up conversations with strangers, oversharing in a general sense, telling an increasing number of drawn-out stories (that, for the record, eventually come around to make perfect sense), and what I believe to be my mother’s defining characteristic: I am always doing something. My mother, although retired for some time, is always busy volunteering, gardening, substitute teaching, and serving on community boards. When she’s not, she’s either baking 50 loaves of almond bread for a church bazaar that’s happening next month or knitting baby blankets for babies who have yet to be conceived. It’s not that I can’t sit still. I’m not really a leg-shaker or a toe-tapper or even a poor listener. I don’t have any actual, physiological or neurological conditions that make it difficult for me to focus or be still. I’m not jittery. I’m (we’re) just so…. tasky. It seems there is always something to do. Not in the, “I’m so busy” kind of way, but in the “It would only take ten seconds to squeeze in this one last tiny project” kind of way. Maybe I’ve always been this way but I don’t think I have. I’ve always been able to get a lot done in a small amount of time, but I’m pretty sure this has changed since I’ve become a parent. I recently read an article by Rachel Macy Stafford titled, “The Day I stopped Saying ‘Hurry Up.’ She wrote, “When you’re living a distracted life, every minute must be accounted for. You feel like you must be checking something off the list or rushing off to the next destination. And no matter how many ways you divide your time and attention, no matter how
48
| RMPARENT
many duties you try and multi-task, there’s never enough time in a day to ever catch up.” Stafford is specifically discussing learning to relax and not to rush her carefree child. While I’m not generally in a rush, these words resonated with me in a similar way. I’m often doing other things when I ought to be just playing. Instead of just sitting and playing trains, I find myself organizing the books. Instead of just playing in the sandbox, I find myself picking the dead leaves and rocks out of the sand. And, if I had a dollar for every time I said, “As soon as I [do this other thing for three min-
a minute, it’s more important to send this email than to play.” Or worse, “It’s more important for things to be perfectly organized than to have fun.” What am I afraid of ? Too much dog hair on the rug isn’t going to hurt anyone. Maybe I think I’ll forget to do these minimal tasks if I don’t do them right then and there. The reality is, I probably would most of the time. But, how bad would that be? Stafford wrote, “I was a bully who pushed and pressured and hurried a small child who simply wanted to enjoy life.” I know I’m no bully to my child, nor was my mother to me, but
utes] I’ll come up and read to you.” Well, you get the idea. I realized, like Stafford, I’m too often distracted. I’m a working mom, so those precious hours I get to spend with my child should be just that— precious. I want my child to have fond memories of me being fun to be with, not obsessive or constantly distracted. Not to mention the non-verbal messages I must be communicating: “Just
pressure comes from a lot of places. And, I can already see some of these ‘commitments to things being right’ in my child. Certainly a little of that won’t hurt her. On the contrary, I’ll be proud if she turns into a doer who completes tasks and meets deadlines. But for now, I’m going to challenge myself to just focus on the most important task at hand: playing. Just playing.