| Home
> Baby Mine News Center
> "Daddy Play With Me! "
"Daddy Play With Me! "
Click here to
see our selection of Baby and Toddler products.
By
Elizabeth Pantley, Contemporary Books, released October 2000
The clock in Jeff's car glows 6:40 P.M. as he rolls
into the driveway after another long and tiring day at work. He
opens the door to his home with a weary sigh and drops the mail
next to the answering machine, which is blinking in that incessant,
anxious way that demands listening. All he wants is a relaxing evening
with no bosses, clients, or coworkers to please. He peeks into his
wife's home office and greets her warmly. As they chat about their
day, she asks if he'd mind fixing dinner so she can finish up a
few things. "No problem," he assures her. Before heading
to the kitchen, he pauses to savor a moment's peace, silently planning
out the next few hours: check the mail, listen to messages, take
a nice hot shower, change into sweats, fix a quick dinner . . .
"Hi, Daddy! Play with me?" Snapped out
of his reverie, Jeff puts on a smile and bends to wrap a hug around
the giggling little angel with the hopeful eyes. He twirls her around
in big circles and plants kisses on her nose. "Hey, my little
Lily-flower!" he croons. He buries his nose in her soft hair,
loving the little-child feel and scent of her. Laughing with glee,
Lily cherishes these sparkling moments in her daddy's arms; craving
more,she implores, "Play with me?" "Hey, punkin',
I have some things to do; then we'll play later."
"Just a little while, Daddy?" she pleads
with a smile. But looking at his face, she suddenly knows he'd never
drop everything just for some silly play, but she can't help asking
one last time. When the expected answer comes, she wanders off resignedly
to watch the TV show that's always on at this time, always on for
her when Daddy's not.
Lily watches her program, all the while counting the
minutes on the clock. Jeff loses himself in the mail, the newspaper,
and the answering machine, looking forward to the completion of
all his daily responsibilities so thathe can play with his daughter.
After some time on the computer reading E-mail, he trudges upstairs,
loosening his tie. He can almost feel the steamy warmth of the shower,
the comfort of those old sweats, the . . .wait, what is this?
He turns to find a beaming little girl, who'd sneaked
up the stairs behind him, given away by the soft thumping of her
tiny feet. She musters all the vocal sweetness that she imagines
a good girl to have and asks, "Can we play now, Daddy?"
She doesn't want to bother him, doesn't want to pester. She just
wants him close to her, laughing his silly laugh just for her.
What Jeff hears is persistence-a trait he will someday
appreciate in her as an adult, but one that annoys him today. So,
with a ruffle of her hair, hedismisses her with strained patience.
"In a little bit, Lily. Why don't you go ask Mommy if she can
play with you now?"
Not so easily put off, she is in position at the bottom
of the stairs when he descends some time later. Her little face
is fairly bursting with the effort of holding back her request.
She doesn't want to annoy him, doesn't want to be inconvenient,
doesn't want to be bad-and so, says nothing, hoping he'll remember
his promise to play "later."
But he doesn't.
"Ready for some dinner?" he asks, walking
quickly past her in an effort to stave off a few repeats of her
"Want to play?" chorus. He enters the kitchen and begins
pulling items from the refrigerator. Just then, the telephone rings,
and little ears listen-as they always do-as Jeff answers. "Hello?
Hey, Steven. How are ya? Great. Did you catch the game Sunday? I
can't believe he missed that play . . . " And so he is lost
to her again, this time to adult conversation, phone tucked between
ear and shoulder.
Maybe if I'm just quiet and smile real big, Lily thinks.
So she looks up at him with every fiber of her being poured into
her smile, every good thing in her soul spilling from her eyes.
Still on the phone, her daddy smiles back vacantly and plops a plate
down for his daughter, then disappears into his wife's office with
a plate for her, too. Lily's best smile fades as she quietly eats
her dinner to the hum of Daddy's voice on the phone.
Afterward, of course, the parents are busy. There's
dinner to be cleaned up, garbage to be taken out, bills to pay .
. . And all the while, Jeff's little one-who naturally will not
be little forever-patiently and proudly waits beside her latest
Lego masterpiece. She just knows he'll notice it soon. She knows
it's the marvel of engineering brilliance sure to draw him into
her world. But the doorbell rings, and Jeff strides right past her
to answer. Perhaps after the visitor leaves, she wonders . . . It's
Rahul, their neighbor. He needs help getting his lawn tractor started.
"Hate to bother you, Jeff, but you think you might have a second
to look at it?"
"Of course," Jeff replies, his thoughts
registering the day last week when Rahul was there at 6:00 A.M.
to jump start Jeff's car. "That's what good neighbors are for."
After letting his wife know where he's bound, he leans
down to plant kisses on his daughter's soft cheeks. "Be right
back, punkin'," he says. And he leaves too quickly to notice
the silent tears that begin to run down those same cheeks so hastily
kissed, soft cheeks that are soon buried in pillows. When Jeff returns,
she is asleep, dreaming of moving out and becoming a neighbor who
could ring the doorbell, call Daddy on the phone, and send E-mails
to him.
The Hidden Message
"You are not as important to me as the mail,
the messages, the dinner, the phone call or the neighbor. I love
you, but I'm too busy for you-and there's always later, there's
always tomorrow."
Think About It
Children perceive time, and what we do with it, differently
from the way adults do. By about age thirty, we adults barely notice
the passing of mere seconds. In the currency of time, they're pennies,
hardly able to buy anything of value. For little ones, however,
every moment is weighty withpossibility and so passes heavily and
slowly. Consider, for instance, he evening we just witnessed-it
passed particularly slowly for the little girl but blew past the
man who is her father.
Seconds become minutes, of course, and minutes become
hours. Almost imperceptibly, hours become decades. One day, Jeff
may indeed turn around toplay with his little girl, only to find
a young woman too busy tending her own life to notice-after all,
she has learned by his example. What a common tragedy! Ask any parent
of grown children, and he or she invariably will attest to how fast
it all goes. As the popular maxim forewarns: One comment you'll
never hear on a person's deathbed is "I wish I'd have put in
more overtime." Instead, we all know the final plea is for
more time with those whose love fills and sustains us. The hard
truth is that we have only a relatively small sliver of time in
which to give our children the gifts of our experience, patience,
wisdom, and heart.
Naturally, obligations intrude on our every day. We
perceive these obligations from an adult point of view, sorting
through them, prioritizing as we go. We give a potential interruption
to our mental calendars a quick once-over and make a snap decision:
adjust the plan, or stick to it? But however we triage the callings
in our lives, time marches on. The work gets done. The meals get
prepared. The house gets cleaned. Things work out. Of necessity,
we allot time for the chores that keep us fed, clothed, clean; these
things push themselves into our plans by their very nature. Other
items seize our attention with their urgency-a flashing message
machine, a ringing phone, a buzzing doorbell.
Certain activities, however, don't all to us so loudly.
Yet, these can have an impact more profound than all the others
combined: activities such as walking in a park, visiting relatives,
tossing a baseball with a child.or building a Lego city. These are
the things that build up a soul.
What would happen if, today, all parents made their
children their top priority? Nowadays, we so often complain about
teenagers and their lack of respect for adults, and we worry about
the anger and lack of direction that seems to plague them to the
point of violence; yet. I meet many parents who tell me that their
teenagers are wonderful young people, and that they enjoy them now,
just as they always have. Therein lies an important lesson: We need
to begin, right now, at this very moment, to see each second as
a gift, as an opportunity to savor where we all are now- whether
we do this by playing, chatting, or simply being together with our
children. In so doing, we may weave a lifeline that just may continue
to hold throughout the years.
When that Lego city gets built, so does the foundation
to a future. And a minute of time for a child will someday be worth
its equivalent in hours to the adult she becomes. The time we spend
with our children now-nurturing, teaching and loving them-is the
substance that helps mold them into the people that they will become.
Changes You Can Make
Review the priorities in your life, make a list of
your top five, and begin investing the bulk of your time and energy
in those choices. If you are a parent, your list-of course-should
include your children. Keep your list of five handy, and refer to
it whenever a decision arises. Ask yourself, "Does what I am
doing, or about to do, fit into my list of priorities?"
Unlike much advice, this way of living is not "easier
said than done." On the contrary, it's "easier done than
said"! You'll find that it doesn't take hours to fill a child's
need for attention. Sometimes fifteen minutes will fill your child's
cup-and then allow you to tend to your daily rituals without that
nagging sense of guilt, or that feeling that something important
is missing. In this story of Jeff and Lily, if he had dropped everything
upon his arrival home and given Lily thirty minutes of undivided
attention, he may have satisfied her need for his love. She might
then have been happy to scamper off and allow him to get to his
business, or perhaps trailed along with him letting their connection
linger throughout the evening.
Of course, some daily tasks must be done regardless
of their placement ofyour list. The laundry would definitely not
be in my top five, but it still needs to be done! However, having
your list will ensure that these"maintenance'' tasks are done
with the proper acknowledgement of their importance. This means
that I may decide that a game of Monopoly with my children now is
worth postponing the laundry until after they've gone to bed.
As for those must-do tasks, some can be undertaken
with a child included as helper or simply as company-a three-year-old
can sit beside you with her plastic kitchen set "preparing"
her own dinner, as you prepare dinner for the family; a five-year-old
can sort socks or fold hand towels as you fold the other laundry;
a seven-year-old can accompany you on your round of errands. In
each case, you will most likely enjoy the time talking together.
When you decide that your family and your children
are your priority, and that you want, and need, to spend more time
with them, your daily decisions will become easier. You may even
begin to ascertain that some goals you had rated as "top priority"
are supremely unimportant. And as a natural and direct effect, these
will fall away, leaving you with two undeniable gains: a heightened
and refined sense of values, and the freedom to pursue them.
Excerpted from Hidden Messages: What Our Words and
Actions are Really Telling Our Children by Elizabeth Pantley
Copyright
2001 by Elizabeth Pantley
|
