How often do you spend time on Google adding things to our virtual carts and researching the next "cool" toy which will entertain our kids. I have been absolutely guilty of this insanity. But now...no more. The best gift I will be giving my kids this month is my time. My presence. Myself. Because what do kids really want?...
"Mommy look at me!"
"Mommy play!"
"Mommy can I come with you?"
My kids don't need more stuff (good Gandhi—our house is filled to the brim with stuff—we need a stuff intervention really).
Lately, I have suggested to family to give my kids the gift of an experience. A lunch date with Grandma. A trip to the movies with Dad. A family pass to the science centre so we have a destination to visit on any given P.A. Day.
And honestly, they prefer the gifts of time.
In our crazy busy lives kids hear "not right now" an awful lot (crazy a lot). My attention is on my email. Or twitter. Or dinner. Or the baby. Or laundry. Or a deadline. Or finding their right shoe. How often do you say "Yes, let's do that right now" when your kids ask you to do something with them? When, in our parenthood, did we stop being "right now people?"...(I know, you're totally thinking of the Big Bang episode when Leonard asked the same question).
A gift of time is measureless, priceless, sometimes costless. But yet it gives so much.
Our attention to our kids.
One of my best childhood memories ever, is of my Mom taking me (just me) downtown on the subway and having lunch together at the old Eaton's cafeteria.. I felt so special. So worthwhile. So very grateful. She left her work. And ironing. And dusting. And dinner making. And volunteering at home (and everything else that she and June Cleaver did in that era). And took me (just me) out for an afternoon date. Years later...I don't remember her dusting...I remember her taking me on a date.
I don't want my kids to remember the stuff in their childhood. I want them to cherish the memories of us together...activities like:
We spend so much time trying to find the "right" gift for our kids. We often forget that our time is free...and yet so fleeting. Childhood days may seem long sometimes (remember those 3am feedings that felt like eternity?!)...but the years fly by so quickly. Give your kids the gift of your time. There is no other gift like it.
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