Making time to spend with your kids
Photo by Samuel Cesar on Unsplash
In today’s episode Dave and Jim discuss how they set aside time to spend with their kids despite their hectic schedules.
During this episode we’ll discuss:
How we grew up
What our current parenting situation is
How we make time to spend with our kids
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TRANSCRIPT
Host: In today's episode we're discussing how we set aside time to spend with our kids despite our hectic schedules. Hey everyone, welcome to the Papa est Fatigue Podcast, the podcast for dads by dads. A few weeks ago, I stumbled across an article entitled The Invisible Scars, Adult Children of Workaholics bring to their Careers. Today, we're going to be discussing that article as well as some of the things that we do to make time to spend with our kids. First, here's my deal. I have a seven-year-old girl and a four-year-old boy.
Jim: I'm Jim, I got a seven-year-old girl and a five-year-old girl.
Host: The article talked about some research that found that adult children of workaholics, which they call ACOW's, had higher levels of depression and anxiety, and believe that external forces controlled their lives versus adults from nonworkaholic homes. They also found that these ACOW's relied on others for decision making, and lack the confidence which led to greater anxiety and depression versus the population at large. These results match similar studies on adult children of alcoholics, which actually prompted this research group to then start another study, which found in the second study that ACOW's had higher levels of depression and higher rates of parentification, which is when a child feels like they're an adult, that takes on those adult responsibilities. They had higher levels of these parentification and depression levels than a control group of adult children from alcoholic homes, which I thought was very interesting.
Jim: This question about the alcoholic or the workaholic, I had a hard time wrapping my mind around this because workaholism, in my opinion, is as a compulsive component, an obsessive-compulsive opponent in the same way that addiction or alcoholism does. Somebody who drinks a lot is not necessarily somebody who is an alcoholic. Likewise, somebody who works a lot is not necessarily a workaholic. The interesting part in the article for me was seeing the parallels between workaholism and alcoholism. That indicates to me that there's a personality disorder or an addiction disorder that ends up being expressed through obsessive work rather than some other personality disorder that maybe we're more familiar with.
Host: Almost like an escapism or a coping mechanism. I think it's an interesting point because the article doesn't really define what a workaholic is, it's really more about the downstream implications for the children. They illustrate this sort of what a workaholic situation looks like. At the very beginning of the article, where they're talking about this child who's now an adult. He's now the adult of a child of a workaholic. He remembers growing up that his dad would come home late, and then he would want to play with his dad, and the dad would just be, "I'm too tired to play with you." Then eventually grudgingly say, "I'll play with you." I think just because you've come home tired from work, or you work a long day to me, I'm not clear that that necessarily has the implications that they talk about in terms of the children of workaholics, the adult children Workaholics.
A lot of this article focuses again, on that the downstream and what these children feel, and how they've grown as adults. It's unclear to me to say, "Okay, was my parent a workaholic as defined by this article?"Which again the definition isn't quite there. It really focuses on the impact on this child and the sense of-- One of the interesting things that they talk about in the article was that part of the challenge for these children is that they outwardly the family looks great. They're hard-working and maybe they have all the new toys and nicest car because the parents they're working hard. The child internalizes something's wrong here. I'm not getting what I need, but I look around and there's nothing, "wrong" with my family.
Jim: It's disorienting.
Host: It's not abusive, but there's still something missing. They internalize that and they go, "Something must be wrong with me because again, my dad's not abusive. He doesn't hit me. My mom doesn't yell at me. Why do I feel like there's this hole in my life?" I thought one of the really interesting downstream implications of this. I think it's an interesting point or a very valid point that it's hard to understand what defines the workaholic as it relates to their definition. It's not defined in the article, which I think is a very valid point.
Jim: Again, the parallels with alcoholism or an alcoholic family, alcoholic parents, I think is very telling in that, I'm not a doctor, I'm not an addiction specialist, but in my opinion, addiction can be expressed in all different ways. Somebody who's obsessive-compulsive or an alcoholic or addiction or eating disorders. Also exercise, somebody could be obsessive about exercise. My opinion, there's a certain personality disorder or an addictive personality disorder that then gets expressed in different ways. You're right in that workaholism is one of the more socially acceptable ones, it's certainly in the United States. Somebody who is "workaholic" may just be like a go-getter.
Somebody who's really getting the job done. I think, to your point, the family behind closed doors, that probably has so you described those downstream effects, where the children, it's not just about dad or mom working all the time, it's about how that personality disorder ends up being expressed within the family. That's my take on it. Again, if there's something different between working a lot and being a workaholic, and just like there is somebody who drinks a lot and may not be an alcoholic.
Host: Now that you're talking about, I wonder if maybe the distinction is also that, while we may work a lot, if given the choice in a vacuum, we're always going to put family over work. Maybe the workaholic is the person you've given that choice would pick work over family. I wonder if that's maybe one of the distinctions as maybe we just think about it ourselves.
Jim: Again, I don't even think that's a choice. It may look like a choice, but it may be driven by some obsessive behavior, a compulsive behavior.
Host: I think that's a fair point, too. Here's a question. We talk about this. Can you talk a little bit about your childhood? Did your parents both work? What was your situation? In the article, there's a list of things that people who are adult children of workaholics. I don't know if symptoms is the right word, but some behavioral things that show up. Do you find yourself in any of that profile? Looking back on this article, where do you see yourself fitting in, if at all, in this whole story?
Jim: It's hard to self diagnose. I'm not entirely sure I identify with any of that. Doesn't everyone have anxiety? Just anxious people. Anti-depressant prescriptions are through the roof. I'm not entirely sure I could equate any of that stuff in my life with my upbringing, but what I can say, again, whether or not they were workaholics. Then again, I'm not an addiction guy. I wouldn't be able to diagnose it just from this article. Both my parents did work a lot. My mom had a part-time job. She was also a full-time grad student for most of the time and maybe not a part-time grad student for most of the time that I was a kid.
My dad traveled a lot for work. Then he also had his own business when he wasn't traveling. Six-day workweeks were pretty common. A lot of our vacations were short, three-day, four-day getaways, the idea of taking two weeks off was just not, even to this day, that's still something that's really foreign to me. I think that's the entrepreneurial, self-employed attitude. As you know, and as I've explained before, it's just on all the time when you work for yourself, you don't really have the nine to five, and there's always something to do.
We could finish our conversation tonight and I could sit down and work for another two or three hours. That's just how it is. It's a different attitude. I saw that in my family. Despite that, both of my parents were as involved in as I would expect them to be showing up at school for the bake sales or the events that the recitals and plays and things like that. My dad was-- He coached my basketball team several years in a row. Despite traveling and working long hours, he still found ways to show up for the family.
Host: My situation pretty similar to yours. My dad-- Actually, I remember when I was younger he had I think it was a 60 to 90 minute one-way commute. This is back in the day when I remember school would start at 8:15 and I would get dropped off at seven days before morning care. It's me and the security guard and I know that there was sometimes I beat the security guard to school since it's just whatever six-year-old me hanging out for the school waiting for it to open. I remember that growing up.
Jim: That was before you could have a gameboy or a phone o something you just sitting there throwing rocks at a fence.
Host: Right. Well, because the school is not open. It's I can't even go to the playground. You're standing there for an hour and you wait for your friends to show. [crosstalk] I clearly wasn't all that. It didn't affect me that much. I can laugh about it. All right. I remember my dad certainly had some long commutes and sometimes he would come home after dinner or during dinner. My mom also was in a top public relations firm and she was the vice president. For a while, when my brother was born, she was freelancing but certainly when she went back, I remember sometimes we would have to go in, she'd have to get something done on the weekend and this is in the days before laptops, so you're not doing a lot of work at home and coming home and doing that work.
She would go to the office and I actually remember that was fun for me because you have this entire office that's empty and you could just run around and make as much noise as you want and walk in and out of people's cubes and-
Jim: Find that Tic Tacs on the top drawer.
Host: Right. It's just a lot of creative, so there's all sorts of toys and stuff and just random stuff around the office that was fun to play with. Certainly, remember my parents working a lot but just like you, I don't remember ever feeling I want this-- Not that I was I didn't have enough time with them. I remember one of my really good friends in college, her mom was a stay-at-home mom and as we were getting to know each other. I remember one of the things that she asked me that always struck me and she said, when she found out that my mom worked, she's like, "Do you ever feel like you missed out on something?" I guess that's like that whole you don't really know what you're missing because that's all I knew but I never felt like I was missing.
I guess maybe, yes. I had to make my own snacks when I got home. I feel like I certainly missed that but, otherwise, you get home and there's homework to do and it's not I'm interacting with anybody anyway and I had a brother. I don't ever feel like there was something missing and just like you, my parents were at all the events.
I was in Chorus when I was younger and they showed up to all the concerts and then I played ice hockey in high school and they showed up to all the games, which from where we are sometimes the games are nuts like you have to drive two-hour commute just to get out to the game, and then there's some games where you go for the weekend deliberately on a Saturday back on Sunday because it's so far.
It's like a four-hour drive and you just do back to back. They were always there for all my games and my brothers too. It was never a thing. It wasn't like are you going to show up. I actually can't think of a time when they didn't show up but that would have been like, "Why don't you come?" That would have been more the exception.
Jim: Would have been unusual?
Host: Yes. Again, I guess this goes to the point that we were making earlier that while our parents worked hard, would they be considered workaholics as the definitely this article talks about? I certainly don't think so, but again, they were hard working. Let's flash forward a few decades and in very broad strokes, what's your current family situation or both of you guys working? Do you have grandparents to help out? How does that work with your kids?
Jim: Both my wife and I work and like I said earlier, I'm self-employed, so I tend to have a more flexible schedule and can do things like show up for will pick up and drop off and show up to the games and things like that when my wife can't. She works with distributed teams that so she's going to be available during office hours from 8:00 in the morning 'till 5:00 or 6:00 at night.
In these days, she's got to be at the desk and plugged into the Zoom calls with their headphones on and she does work weekends, but again, I wouldn't think that she'd be characterized as a workaholic. I think she has a demanding work schedule. In some ways, she really enjoys it. I don't think that's workaholism either but it's something that gives her a lot of satisfaction.
When you're talking earlier, I wanted to tell the story about some friends of ours who I saw a pictures from their vacation. It's been, I don't know, a week or two weeks out in the wilderness and there's a picture of that the dad had taken and the mom is fishing with the daughters in this beautiful mountain stream, and the mom hasn't an airboat in and I asked, I said, "Is your wife on a call?" He said, "Yes, she's on an international conference call in that picture."
Well, she is fishing with the daughters and I don't think that's workaholism. I think that's somebody who's really stepping up and that's like superstar mom, in my opinion. Maybe that's part of the delineation and that is she wasn't doing it to avoid being with the kids but she was somehow a modern way was blending it so she could be present and still get her job done, have some time on vacation.
Our grandparents are not really accessible, so it is just my wife and I. We both work but, again, I've got the luxury of adjusting my schedule so I can pick up some of the childcare responsibilities when my wife needs to work.
Host: On our end, similar to you, my wife is also self-employed and she is certainly in one of these sort of you eat what you kill kind of jobs, so you only get paid when you get work done. It's not uncommon for her to pull down a 12-hour-day, six, five days a week, and then depending on the seasonality, she could be gone for 10 hours on Saturday and 10 hours on Sunday.
It just depends but she's got a pretty crazy schedule. I have a 9:00 to 5:00 where I can flex my time, though, so I can flex to pick up the kids if I need to, or if I need to pop out in the middle of the day, it's okay. I have to make it up at the back end but I have that flexibility and then the other thing is, I've got 3:00 to 4:00 side projects that eat up a bunch of time, so we're both pretty strapped like you guys.
In terms of free time, and certainly during COVID, we haven't seen the grandparents a lot. My parents live about five minutes away and in a pre-COVID, we were there on Friday nights for dinner, and then occasionally, you could drop the kids off for a playdate at the grandparents you get a few hours here and there, but that's all gone away.
They haven't seen my parents really and, at this point, in about nine months they haven't really interacted other than Zoom calls and things like that but certainly not in person. I think that since we're talking about how the children factor into this and our work schedules, there's another article that I wanted to highlight that I think has been pretty interesting and it's titled, Want to Race Happy, Emotionally Healthy Kids.
Research shows how you spend time together matters more than the number of hours and I'll put this in the show notes, actually both our articles are in the show notes. The main takeaway of this article is exactly what it says in the title is, it's the quality not the quantity in terms of how you spend your time with the children and there was, I think, an especially important quote from one of the authors of this research, and he said, "Time and attention are not the same thing."
There's a big difference between physical presence and psychological presence. You can be spending time with people but if you're not psychologically present, you're not doing anybody any good. The article had a bunch of recommendations and one of the things, in particular, was to schedule family time. I think there are other ways to slip and family time into the existing schedules that we have despite how constricted our ability is in terms of free time. I'm curious as to how you carve out time. Again, we know that you've got a crazy schedule. How do you make time in your day to make sure that you're spending time with the kids?
Jim: I think you make a good point and the article makes a good point about being psychologically present or the quality of the time, not the quantity and I think one of the things that's been a theme in our conversations is a sort of alcohol mindfulness of just when I'm with my girls, I really try to be present and that's both for selfish and that I really want to enjoy the time and remember the time when they're young and it's also obviously for them.
I've seen parents that will be on their phone when they're around their kids and seeing it as I am, I try not to mess around and then maybe I'm looking at a recipe or I got a text mom or something like that, but to see it from somebody else's eyes to see the kids don't get, particularly the younger kids. They just know that mom or dad are staring at the phone and whatever it is, the attention is not on the kids. In my opinion, I think kids more than anything, they just want their parent's undivided attention. Despite the time constraints, those times when we can be together, I put the phone away, I try to be present. Again, just try to be mindful. Some of the most mundane and routine things end up being quality time together.
We walk to and from there at a daycare a couple of blocks from here and I walk them in the morning, most mornings, sometimes relating that walking back in the afternoon, and it's about a 20-minute walk. I've been doing it for years even before that started school. Early on, there was a sense of urgency like they got little feet. It's taken half an hour to walk three blocks. It's like, "We got things to do. Come on." I caught myself early on and just realized like let's just do this. You want to pick up that rock and you want to walk on that wall or chase the squirrel, whatever. It may take a little bit longer to get home but that ends up being part of the time that I spend with them during the day,.
Again, it's a shared activity. It's not really going to the playground, but we're just spending time together. In some ways it's similar with bedtime and we've got the bedtime routine, you got to get them in their pajamas, get the teeth brushed and get into bed and read. That's also frankly, some nights can be very frustrating, but if I can stay patient and stay present, then that becomes something that we do together and then sit down and read books. We try to read books or I read books at least with one of the kids or both of them every night.
That's quality time and it's we'll read maybe a book by choice. That's maybe a chapter book, like a roll doll book or one of the picture books that the younger one will pick out. Again, it's just mindful time I'm not trying to race through to get them to sleep. I can go do my work. I'm going to try to be mindful, they're going to go to sleep eventually. As it is with kids, the harder I push probably the longer it's going to take. It is what it is. He can't push the stream, they're going to go to bed eventually, and then I'll get on with my work.
I could say anything, that's when I am with them, even in the pedestrian normal times, I try to make the most of it, but we do have special events. We've got a Friday movie night where every week we'll take out and put out a picnic blanket, let the girls eat, watch a movie in front of the TV. It's something we try to do as a family. Then Sundays, we have family meeting and game night. We've got a dedicated thing where we go through a certain agenda and talking about the week and do some compliments and appreciation and then do a family game night.
Those are special because that's time when all four of us are present and dedicated mom, dad, and the two girls. Outside of that, there's the time that I spend walking to and from and making meals or whatever with the girls. We also, my wife and I try to make a special one-on-one time. It's remarkable, even if it's 10 minutes, 15 minutes, whatever it is, if it's just one parent with one kid, 100% on divided attention that is like fuel. It is the most potent and that the results are incredible compared to early on in COVID where I'm trying to get them done with the remote school. I've got them from sunup to sundown. I was with them all the time. That wasn't really quality time. A lot of it wasn't quality time, whereas this being present and being distilled down to 10 minutes or 15 minutes of 100% undivided attention, that just we said like it fills up their bucket.
There's that book about it fills up their bucket, makes them feel good, and really strengthens our relationship.
Host: I like the one-on-one time because I think that there's also a level of how do I put this? Sometimes some kids are only willing to talk to one parent about a certain problem they're having. By having that one-on-one time, you can start to figure that out. I'll give you an example. Just today our daughter was in a mood this morning and my wife tried to talk to her and the daughter wasn't having any of it. I just took her aside and we had a conversation. I teased out what was wrong. As parents, as we carve out that one-on-one time, and this is in reaction to obviously an issue. I think having that one-on-one time, the relationships between yourself and your daughters are different than the relationship that they have with their mom.
Jim: They are going to continue to be more different.
Host: To have that one-on-one time allows, I think everybody should explore that unique relationship that they have, whether it's that they feel more comfortable talking to you about X and more comfortable talking to your wife about Y it allows for that to happen naturally versus trying to force it and trying to tease it out of them. I really liked that trying to do that. When the kids were young, I always felt like I was going to have a monthly play date. This week, you're going to go with your mom and this time I'll be with the daughter and then next time, whatever a month from now, like the boy goes with me and the truth is that I think our schedules just never allowed for that.
Also certainly what I planted in my mind, my wife's job, wasn't what it is now she's working every weekend. It's not uncommon for me to have the kids from eight in the morning, on a Sunday, on a Saturday till like five or six at night. [chuckles] It just doesn't work to carve out that time. The things that we do similar to you, the bedtime routine, while it can be somewhat frustrating at times, I think we've gotten into a system now where everybody mostly knows what's expected of them. I built in the fact that there's going to be some craziness. I add five minutes just for teeth brushing because I know there's going to be this whole, I don't want to go first. I want my sister to go first.
I built that buffer in knowing that I want to read for a certain amount of time. One of the things that's been interesting. This happened over time in the last couple of weeks naturally.
What used to happen is I would read to both kids and they would both sit down and the daughter would pick a set of stories and then her brother would pick a set of stories and everyone would sit there for the whole thing while I read. What's been happening recently is I'll read to my son. I think part of it is because at this stage, my daughter has just advanced beyond the types of books that my four-year-old, my seven-year-old daughter hasn't gone beyond the four-year-old books that her brother wants.
What has happened is as I'm reading to my son, my daughter will go find my wife and they'll go play a game like a board game or a card game for like 15 minutes and then we'll switch off and then she'll come back and then my son will go play the game a different game and I'll read to our daughter. It's just fun because so I just got finished doing a podcast, the last podcast about gaming. It's a really important thing for me.
To see that the kids are embracing that, but also I'm still being able to get in the reading time. I like it that, and especially because they're finding ways to carve out time with my wife who is just has a much more rigorous or difficult schedule than I do. I like the fact that they're creating these moments where they can have that time with her and they've done it within our existing framework, our existing schedule. That's been new. I liked that one.
Some of the other things, now that the weather's getting better in the last couple of weeks, we've been doing a Saturday morning playground trip. What I'm trying to do is take them to different playgrounds across the city. It also allows us to explore the city a little bit and just to get us all out and that's been fun and so there's spending some time chasing them around and actually just last week there is a playground in the city that there's like an airplane fuselage. Because of that, the playground has been redone to look like an airport.
Last week we went and we pretended we were flying into all different places and I'd get on the airplane. I would check them in at the baggage area where I take their tickets and then I'd run over to the airplane and I'd get on the plane and welcome them onto the plane and show them to their seats and give them the in-flight food. Then I'd have to fly the airplane to apparently. Then at the end thanks for flying, enjoy your trip and enjoy your stay in Los Angeles and your trip to Disneyland or whatever.
It's just fun, especially because no one's traveling right now or when we're not traveling right now. I think just the fun way of interacting with the kids and playing with them. That's been nice. Some of the other things again, in terms of keeping with the schedule, so we always eat as a family. Again, there are some exceptions to that primarily with my wife, at a minimum there's always three of us. Then depending on where my wife is, sometimes she might skip dinner with us, but that's pretty rare. That might be once a month, maybe so generally, we all sit down to dinner together on the weekends. We all sit down to lunch together. Even when they're done eating, they don't get to just up and leave.
You have to stick around here for a little while longer. There's no set limit on that, I won't let, particularly the daughter, who's like, Oh, I want to go do something else. No, no, you're sticking around here for a little while. That's how I grew up.
All of our meals were together. I think I've mentioned this in another podcast that my weekday dinners would last an hour and a half, and then you got to clean up the kitchen and then go do homework when you're in high school. That was just how I grew up. We've done that here and we mostly have a no-phone rule at the table. Again, there are some exceptions based on my wife's work. I would say we're able to keep to that rule 95% of the time. I think that's an important one because that's a slippery slope. Sometimes the phones are not allowed in the-- We eat a breakfast nook because we're all very small. [laughs]
That's the space that we have and so sometimes the phones are physically removed from the breakfast nook. Even if something rings you can't go get it. Actually, we should probably-- Have you heard of that game? I guess it's a primary, I think is millennials play it, but everybody, I don't know if they still do it, but for a while, I guess you put your phone in the table and the first one that looks at their phone must pay the bill. Maybe, whoever looks up the phone has to do the dishes, maybe that's what we should do, to ensure that happens.
I think generally speaking we're pretty good at making sure that those meal times are dedicated to interacting with one another. Just like you, I walk the kids to school. We have to drive, but there's a curb-side, and I actually will park and then walk the kids in. I cherish that time, it might only be 5 minutes, but it's 5 minutes that-- There's nothing else happening right now. It's me and the kid, and it's still morning, so nobody's pissed-off, they haven't had a bad day yet. It's still completely optimistic, I don't have to deal with any like this kid was mean to me kind of stuff.
It's fun and actually generally when I pick them up too, it's the same situation, and how did the school go, who did you play with, what did you learn? All that kind of stuff, it's the fun check-ins. Going back to your point about kids just want to know that you're there, part of it too is, you also want to show them that you're engaged in their life, and some of how we do that is asking questions to see what's going on and let them know that we care. In particular, that moment is important to let them know like, how was your day and to just be inquisitive and the other things is at this point too, my daughter, in particular, is still fairly responsive. In a couple of years, she's going to be like, I'm not-
Jim: How was my day?
Host: Right, yes it was okay. Which we used to get when she was younger. I don't know about your girls, but in pre-K3, pre-K4, first grade, kindergarten, how was your day, what did you do? I don't know. Now she can actually tell me what she's doing, we can have a conversation. Oh, how was math, what did you learn? How did you learn it? There is actual genuine conversation, and it's probably a window for that, so I'm enjoying that time right now while I can. Those are some of the things we're doing, and just like you, I think it's important to schedule, and especially when you have crazy schedules to fit them into your existing schedules- just extend the drop-off, or change your mentality about, okay the walk is going to take an extra 10 minutes, but you know what, whatever it's 10 minutes of my day, it's no big deal. The amount of engagement that you get back is worth more than the 10 minutes you lost, that you could have checked an e-mail, and some of the things we talked about in the past, these moments with our kids are so fleeting, they don't seem like it.
At the end of the year, you're going to look back and go, what happened? Having those moments at least allows you to live in the moments and maybe savior a little bit, so if you look back on that year, you'll at least have that memory of, Oh, yes there's that funny story that she told me when I was walking her to school, or during the bed-time routine and those kinds of things.
Jim: Yes, I think similar with the kids and that quality versus quantity, same could be said for us. If we can make those times, add some really good quality to them, that's something we could do selfishly.
Host: Well, we hope we gave you some new ideas on how to set aside time to spend with your kids. If you'd like to support the podcast and hear more discussions about fatherhood, please subscribe and drop us a review. If you have any questions hit us up on the Facebook page, facebook.com/papaestfatigue that's P-A-P-A-E-S-T-F-A-T-I-G-U-E. Thanks for listening.
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