You've no doubt heard the "but it's quality time!" response many people use when describing the minimal amount of time they have to devote to something, or someone in their life.
"Quality time" sounds like an even trade, does it not? You can't spend a "lot" of time with someone, so you rationalize that be really focusing on the person you are with when you can be with them, you'll make up for the difference.
Like so many things that sound good, but are sugar coated B.
S.
to make us feel better, and have nothing to do with others, this one ranks close to the top.
I like it when people tell me something that clashes with what I believe so violently that I can feel my blood pressure rising, but, after having reflected on what they have said, I go "WOW! That is very useful!!" This happened in to me in Boston, Massachusetts.
While conducting a seminar on time management, one of the participants said "when parents say they don't spend a lot of time with their kids, but they do spend 'quality' time with them, they are just trying to make themselves feel better; 'quality' time is something that parents invented to try and bury the fact that they have their priorities all out of whack, and are choosing to do OTHER things instead of be with their kids; kids don't know what quality time is..
all they know is you either spend a lot of time with them, or you don't!" This was profound.
I didn't like it when I first heard it; I was jumping on a plane at 7:00 am on Sunday mornings, hopping all over the US through the week, arriving in Kansas City at midnight the following Friday night, and pulling into my driveway at 2:00 Saturday morning.
But this week, on my flight out of Newark, NJ, I spent the entire time thinking about what this guy had said.
I thought back to when I was a kid.
He was right, I had not made a distinction between quality time and any other kind of time.
As a kid, I knew that someone was with me, or they weren't.
I was fortunate enough to always have had my Mother at home.
Did she spend every waking moment sitting next to me, making sure it was 'quality' time? No.
There was no need for that.
For me, it was enough to know she was somewhere in the house.
If I was watching Sesame Street, she could be in the kitchen out of view, but I had the comfort of knowing that if something went wrong, or if I needed someone, it would be my mother, and not some daycare provider or other form of child care.
As has happened so many times, on that day in Boston, I realized that even though I was the one conducting the seminar, I had also been the one who got the most out of the day.
The few simple words this guy spoke had jolted me into realizing, that at least for younger kids, there is no such thing as 'quality' time.
When it comes to a project at work, quality time matters.
But, as my friend in Boston pointed out "when it comes to our kids, quality time is B.
S.
!"
"Quality time" sounds like an even trade, does it not? You can't spend a "lot" of time with someone, so you rationalize that be really focusing on the person you are with when you can be with them, you'll make up for the difference.
Like so many things that sound good, but are sugar coated B.
S.
to make us feel better, and have nothing to do with others, this one ranks close to the top.
I like it when people tell me something that clashes with what I believe so violently that I can feel my blood pressure rising, but, after having reflected on what they have said, I go "WOW! That is very useful!!" This happened in to me in Boston, Massachusetts.
While conducting a seminar on time management, one of the participants said "when parents say they don't spend a lot of time with their kids, but they do spend 'quality' time with them, they are just trying to make themselves feel better; 'quality' time is something that parents invented to try and bury the fact that they have their priorities all out of whack, and are choosing to do OTHER things instead of be with their kids; kids don't know what quality time is..
all they know is you either spend a lot of time with them, or you don't!" This was profound.
I didn't like it when I first heard it; I was jumping on a plane at 7:00 am on Sunday mornings, hopping all over the US through the week, arriving in Kansas City at midnight the following Friday night, and pulling into my driveway at 2:00 Saturday morning.
But this week, on my flight out of Newark, NJ, I spent the entire time thinking about what this guy had said.
I thought back to when I was a kid.
He was right, I had not made a distinction between quality time and any other kind of time.
As a kid, I knew that someone was with me, or they weren't.
I was fortunate enough to always have had my Mother at home.
Did she spend every waking moment sitting next to me, making sure it was 'quality' time? No.
There was no need for that.
For me, it was enough to know she was somewhere in the house.
If I was watching Sesame Street, she could be in the kitchen out of view, but I had the comfort of knowing that if something went wrong, or if I needed someone, it would be my mother, and not some daycare provider or other form of child care.
As has happened so many times, on that day in Boston, I realized that even though I was the one conducting the seminar, I had also been the one who got the most out of the day.
The few simple words this guy spoke had jolted me into realizing, that at least for younger kids, there is no such thing as 'quality' time.
When it comes to a project at work, quality time matters.
But, as my friend in Boston pointed out "when it comes to our kids, quality time is B.
S.
!"