When my family and I go out to a restaurant, I sometimes see families seated nearby, acting out my biggest nightmare: Four people are all just sitting there, gazing at their phones, not interacting, laughing, or talking at all. That is my greatest fear: that a time may come when I don’t have anything to talk about with my family. As the leader of my family, I see myself as the one who sparks conversations, who asks questions, who finds something to discuss that will get us talking and listening to each other. That is part of my responsibility! Seeing other families squandering their precious face-to-face time, I want to say, “Put your cellphones down!” Have you ever thought about how much of the total time you will ever spend with your kids is already past? A popular author and speaker, Tim Urban, decided to answer that question with data. Urban, whose website, Wait But Why?, has 600,000 subscribers, looked back at his own life with his parents, who were in their mid-60s at the time, and tabulated how much time he spent with THE SHORT SEASON OF CHILDHOOD Seize the Moment to Talk, Listen, and Connect
them as a kid, and how much he still had left. By the time he graduated from high school at age 18, Urban figured, 93% of his in-person time with his parents was already gone! After that, he saw his parents only five times a year, for two days at a time. Even if his parents lived into their 90s, Urban said, by 34, he had already used up all but 5% of his likely total time with them. Frankly, this shocked me. If that’s all the time we have together, shouldn’t that be quality time? Shouldn’t we avoid wasting time together at a restaurant by staring at social media? Put that phone down. Even if you just talk about what kind of day you had, tell that story! If you are with a child who wants to engage with you, engage! November is Family Stories Month, so this is the season to share and celebrate each other’s stories. As you gather with loved ones this holiday season, I hope you’ll remember this: All we have is this present moment together, and we will never get it back. Don’t waste it!
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