Categories: uncategorized
Date: 17 May 2009 07:48:25
We are rapidly approaching National Family Week. According to the website "This new national occasion will encourage families to play, learn, eat, read, compete and - most importantly - spend quality time together."
Now like most busy mums reading this type of thing it starts to make me feel an ickle guilty... I know over the years I haven't spent enough quality time with Third Party. However, reading through the list and thinking about this week I realise perhaps as a society we are too quick to feel guilty and too slow to recognise what we do manage. I want to highlight a few examples of how Third Party and I have structured our lives. I hope it might give some ideas about how you can achieve these objectives without being The Waltons.
Let's start with May: Eurovision. Eurovision is a major "family" event for us... one of those nights, where ever possible, we spend together. It's also a night where we try to think of family in the broadest terms. Last night we headed off to a party, (where Third Party won the sweepstake), but we were still in text contact with a significant member of our urban family. In previous years, and for the semi's, it has involved us sitting down with snacks and each giving a score out of ten for each act...then voting for the act(s) who have scored highest between us.
Also in May we bond around the end of season "excitement".
June and July: Glastonbury marks the beginning of the festival season. In recent years Third Party has been shipped off with her grandfather and uncles to enjoy some quality family time with them in Somerset. Generally festivals provide a key source of quality time. Yes... they are generally times when work is involved, but there is time inbetween when we get to catch up and talk aswell as chill in a way we don't the rest of the year.
August: We head off to Greenbelt. I'm only just beginning to realise how much this place has helped influence my daughter. Suffice to say it's a v. special weekend to us.
September: We accept that September is a mad month... the start of the academic year is a time for survival rather than quality time!!!!
October: We tend to bond together eating Harribo for Halloween. We tend to sit there being cynical about Christian paranoia and trick and treaters...can't explain totally... but it happens.
November: This is where the weather has changed and Saturday mornings tend to become a slobbing time. Generally for a weekend or two this month we will chill together in our pj's watching naff tv, drinking hot chocolate and eating toast. We also tend to spend one night sitting watching Children in Need in November.
December: Christmas. As explained here we don't generally do a "standard" Christmas in our family. Third Party and I have to do Chrimbo early. Last year it was a chick flick chill out... normally it has been on the Sunday before Christmas. Whatever, it's still special family time.
January and February: Cold, miserable months when nothing much happens. As a result we tend to consume rather a lot of roast potatoes and gravy, and hot chocolate and squirty cream. During these months we tend to settle down and slob alot, watching teenage chick flick or Bratt Pack DVD's.
March / April: Depends when Easter falls as to which month it concentrates on. Third Party and I celebrate our faith together at Easter. For us the most significant services have tended to be Maundy Thursday and Sunrise on Easter Sunday. Never fails to amaze me how a teenager with a choice gets out of bed at silly o'clock to join her mum in celebrating the risen Christ...(and to a lesser extent the feminist sub-text).
Other bonding times tend to come when we find a tv programme we both get into. Most recently Ashes to Ashes and All the Small Things have fulfilled this role.
You will have noted that Third Party and I build our quality time, quite alot, on the interests we share; like hot chocolate, music and film. I don't know if her interests, in part, have been fuelled by the shared memories or have simply arisen. Whatever...I have a daughter who I like spending time chilling with sometimes. Quality time shouldn't be a duty we have to be encouraged to fulfil. When we take that view friction tends to arise and it doesn't tend to be "quality time". In our experience quality time is what emerges through doing what you enjoy on a regular basis. It is something which naturally comes out of including, within your pattern of life, some time for chilling and relaxing. It is also something which needn't cost an arm and a leg....also despite what some experts might say the television can facilitate quality time. Third Party and I tend to have some of our best discussions over stuff we see on the goggle box.