Perhaps Covid19 is God’s Temporary Time Machine?
With all of the chaos going on around the world with Coronavirus, and specifically in my own home, I sometimes wonder if it is like sending families back 100 years when we actually spent time together but since we are so accustom to managing our own perceived “Urgent” calendars, perhaps it’s time to recognize the silver lining and take a lesson away from our farming ancestors?
As a father of 3 teenagers 13, 16, and 18, I sometimes find it difficult to imagine that not long in the future it will only be my wife and I so what happens after that will be based on the relationships I have with each of them. I’ll be the first to admit that if I were to rank myself from 1–10 as it relates to my ability to nurture and prioritize time with my children, I’d say I’m likely a natural 5…. and it really takes intentional planning for me to move the needle to where I want to be as a father.(Maybe a 9 or 10?)I look back and contribute this to the fact that my belief system early on was that a “Good” man was there to produce financially and to take care of the financial needs of his family so that is where I would focus most of my energy and as far as the kiddos went I just assumed mom had that covered, until around 3 years back when I realized that I wanted something better between myself and my children, something closer and more real and so I’ve been trying to move the needle since that time and just like any desired change it takes work and commitment.
So with the back drop of this, as a family during this crisis I’ve had a good amount of time on my hands and one of the things that occurred to me is that when as a family we are in essence forced to stay at home, we begin to adapt accordingly and it has opened my eyes around the importance of this connection with my children. We played monopoly the other night and I believe my 18 year old son and 16 year old daughter spoke words to each other in person???? Like real twilight zone shit is going on here….. Duties around the house are being shared because the dynamic of being around to see all of the activity required to keep things moving becomes more real I think. It’s different than leaving to go to school and to come home at the end of the day seeing the kitchen clean and the laundry done.
Earlier this week my 13 year old son and I decided to go up to a shut down Ski Hill where we have a rental and hiked the mountain and then bombed down together, and this happened because of the lock down we are in. It is a memory that we will share together forever and it reminded me that we don’t need a crisis to take a day off work to allocate 1–1 time with our children and our wives. 3 years ago I made the commitment that I would begin to invest in experiences with my children, because this is all we really have is experiences and during these times there are opportunities to share our values and beliefs and life lessons with them in a much less structured “DAD” like manner which I believe allows them to absorb perhaps a little more.
When I say that Coronavirus is God’s time machine I’m suggesting that back in the early 1900’s when we would have been working the family farm, as a group we would learn from each other, play with each other and share experiences with each other which is the key ingredient to deeper relationships and so I’m thankful for the lesson and moving forward I’ll be even more intentional about spending time with each of children and of course my wife as well. What are your intentions with your family???
