So I'm going to start this post by saying that I may piss some of you off who read me regularly, and if I do, I'm sorry, but if you know me you already know that I'm going to go ahead and say what I'm going to say anyway.
On Sunday I had the kids to myself, so after church we headed to Wal-Mart for an oil change and then began an afternoon of fun... lunch outside at Just Fresh, hiking the woods of McDowell, followed by exploring at the nature center and play at the playground. The kids had a blast and I enjoyed watching them just being able to stretch their legs out in the fresh air and sunshine.
There was something else however, that struck me, that I did not enjoy watching. The other parents.
I want to clarify that I have a cell phone. I talk on it. I'll send the occasional text message. I do not, however, have a data package. There are many reasons we choose not to have data for our phones, the greatest of these is that we chose not to be connected to the rest of the world ALL THE TIME, which is effectively what you do when you carry your data phone in your pocket. I love all of you, but enough already. Sometimes I just want you to go away : )
As I watched my kids eat lunch and listened to their happy conversation, I noticed that we were the only family at the restaurant having a conversation. No one else was talking to one another. Every father at every table was engrossed in their phone. Some of the moms were too. A lot of the dads were there alone with their kids, who sat in silence waiting for their meals while their fathers typed furiously on their phones.
It was the same thing at the nature center and the same thing at the playground. No one was interacting with their children at all. Now I'm the first mom to find a nice shady spot under a tree to sit and watch my kids while they run and play, and I'm more than happy to strike up a conversation with another parent as we watch our kids together, but unless it's dire, you won't see my phone.
I know that being on a phone doesn't make you a bad parent. I realize that these parents took their kids to lunch and to the nature preserve. They could have just as easily done nothing at all with them. I know. I get it. But as I looked around I was just so sad for them. All of them. The kids and the parents alike. I just felt like they were all missing out on the most important thing in their lives... one another.
One hundred fifty years ago parents didn't have a lot of time with their kids. They worked. They plowed fields. They spent hours a day doing laundry. They had to make their own clothes for crying out loud. So there wasn't a lot of free time for just hanging out.
Now, we have lots of time. I know we feel like we GO GO GO all the time, but the reality is, we have more time on our hands than people ever have on this planet. Heck, here I am having time to write this blog. But my point is that while we are together, maybe we should concentrate on really being TOGETHER. Really present. In the moment.
I would have loved to have walked up the the parents I saw this weekend and whispered in their ears "would you chat with your kids if you could IM them?" But I didn't and I won't. Because it's not my place and it's not my life. But I can tell you that it was a wake up call for me to make sure to try and always to be "present" with my kids.
They're only ours for a little while. Then they head out into the world and leave us behind and we may be lucky to get a text from them. I'm hoping that if I make time to interact with them now, maybe I'll earn a full fledged phone call from them when they are grown. Maybe : )
