Quality Time

If you were to ask my son (and I have) what his favorite thing to do at home is, he would tell you "wrestle with Daddy".  If you asked me the same question when I was his age, I would have told you the same.  We dads have the privilege of being our children's best buddy if only for a short time.

In an age where we are becoming increasingly reliant on electronics and media to occupy our idle time, we are growing farther and farther apart as a society.  What would we do without our wii's, our 360's, our ipods, our laptops, our cell phones, our text messages, our facebook and yes, this blog?  If an enormous electromagnetic pulse hit the earth and every electronic device died simultaneously, rather than a chaotic panic, I believe there would be a prolonged silence as we all try to comprehend life without our gadgets.  We would not be able to function.

I visited with a friend the other day.  This friend is a facebook friend, he and I graduated high school together and we now live in the same town.  The town we live in is only about 3000 people and is the town we both grew up in, moved away from and moved back to.  He and I spoke face to face for the first time in more than 10 years.  I told him it was pretty sad that I felt it adequate to check up on my friends via facebook instead of picking up the phone and talking to them.  How pathetic is that?  What's even more sad is that my 5 year-old son is following in my footsteps.

We dads have an enormous responsibility to our children.  We need to instill in our children at an early age that we are creatures of community.  We need people in our lives.  We need to have social skills to be a contributing individual to society.  We need to know and be fully known.  We need to wrestle.

I am going to make it a point to spend more time with my son.  The computer usage will be at a time that doesn't take up his time with me.  There will come a day when I don't have a child to kiss goodnight anymore.  We dad's have to make it a point to give our children our time.  While you are practicing your body to body suplex or the figure four leg lock, you may just teach them a life lesson.  Spend some time with your kids today.  They will love you for it.