I have been writing about being a dad every day because I want to become a better dad. But sometimes I get frustrated at my son for stalling bedtime when it eats into my writing time. The irony isn’t lost on me: I rushed my son so that I could write about being patient. I had my priorities upside down.
In How Will You Measure Your Life?, Clayton Christensen wrote:
[my classmates who inadvertently invested in lives of hollow happiness] prioritized things that gave them immediate returns—such as a promotion, a raise, or a bonus—rather than the things that require long-term work, the things that you won’t see a return on for decades, like raising good children.
And when those immediate returns were delivered, they used them to finance a high-flying lifestyle for themselves and their families: better cars, better houses, and better vacations.
The problem is, lifestyle demands can quickly lock in place the personal resource allocation process. “I can’t devote less time to my job because I won’t get that promotion—and I need that promotion …”
… for your family? Yet the job is taking away time with your family. Or worse, the job is taking you away from your family. As John Lennon sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
We start out with good intentions. We want to support our family, give them a good life, and be present with them. But we run so hard that somewhere along the way we forget what it is we are running for. We say we are doing it for our family. But are we really?
Presence is more important than presents. Money can buy presents, which make children happy for a while. It can’t buy presence, which is what they really want. If your child has a preferred parent, you know this. Children gravitate towards the people who spend the most time with them.
Children are that simple. It’s we adults who overcomplicate things. We think they need this and that from us when they really just want us. Working hard is important, and our children should see us do it. But we should also know when enough is enough.
I hate to miss a day of writing. But it’s worse to miss my children’s childhood.
P.S. Want to come back to this later? Keep it in your commonplace book.