A number of you have asked me:  “How did I find the time?” to put this website together... in short I neglected other things - no mother or wife of the year awards around here – in fact gardener of the year would be highly unlikely too!   But seriously, I think being time poor is a massive issue for today’s parents.  I constantly find myself saying: “We’re not dumb, we just don’t have the time” in response to a whole raft of issues.  The media continually give us these obvious messages as if we were thick – Five plus a day and Push play etc.  Believe it or not we actually already know that exercise and fruit and veggies are good for us and our kids.  When will they see that a lack of time is the reason that we...

Haven’t planted a veggie garden and built a hen house

 Eat more takeaways than we should

Don’t get as much exercise as we need

Speed in our cars and text when we are driving

Let the tele and Playstation babysit our children

Don’t get to church on Sunday

Don’t spend time practicing numeracy and literacy skills with our kids

Don’t do volunteer work

Don’t recycle our rubbish very well

Don’t take time out to nurture our marriages

Have anger, depression and anxiety disorders

Throw our elderly into homes

Don’t catch up with friends as often as we should

Don’t get out into our National Parks

And the list goes on...

You could of course argue that it comes down to priorities and that there are and always have been 24 hours in a day.  I agree we do have to prioritise but in the current economy it is very difficult to survive on one income.  Many parents both have to work to keep a roof over the family’s head and food on the table.  When both parents’ work time has to take priority, a big chunk of that precious day is gone.  When I was teaching full time I would find that at the end of a stressful workday my own children would get what was leftover. ..and believe me that often wasn’t much.   I have had the last year off work and our whole family has functioned better as a consequence...although the same can’t be said for the bank balance!   There seems to be a narrow view that a country’s and in fact an individual’s success is based on income, but what is that worth if it doesn’t actually enhance our quality of life?  I’m tempted to go into some possible solutions but...I don’t have the time J

 

 
 


Comments

Archie
03/06/2010 1:51pm

My sentiments exactly... I know I should exercise, eat more vegetables and spend quality time with my wife and kids but who can afford too? You know the phrase, “The best thing to spend on your child is time”... I wish my work could be convinced of this! Thanks for this passage; it certainly has made me examine my life priorities after a 16 year break from parenting.

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Jacinda
04/06/2010 10:11am

Hey Archie - thanks for stopping by and love the name (so much so our youngest child is an Archie). Yep, everytime I say "Sorry, I don't have the time" I try to say to myself "Sorry its not a priority" - it makes you stop and check that you are being true to yourself. Unfortunately, a job does have to be fairly high up the priority list!

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Anelly
03/11/2010 3:19pm

Here is a list with 8 reasons you are always out of time http://blog.cyclope-series.com/2010/10/29/8-reasons-you-are-always-out-of-time/

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