You may have seen this quote circling around social media since the beginning of December, “Give the gift of presence this year“. Although our children would never ask for this type of present, it’s the number one gift we can give to our children. The other day while watching my daughter at swim lessons (well, I was half watching, half looking at my phone). I thought to myself, Sweet, half an hour to do some work while she’s in her lessons.
On our way to the car after her lesson, my daughter’s response when I asked her if she had fun was , “It was good, but… You didn’t watch me! Next time, don’t bring your phone!” In that instant, my heart dropped to the floor. She was right. I wasn’t watching her. Clearly she noticed and wanted me to watch her. I suddenly had one of those I feel like a very shitty mom moments. In the past, I used to watch my other daughters during lessons the entire time. Heck, I even had the big, clunky camcorder out while my first daughter was in her swimming lessons to capture every moment.
So, why wasn’t I being present with my last daughter?
I was holding the answer in my hand. It was because of my smart phone!!! They didn’t exist then. Nope. We didn’t have any other choice but to simply watch our children. Now we live in a multi-tasking society – which makes it hard to stay present.
I spoked to other moms about my guilt after my daughters comment and their response was, “It happens all the time”. This incident however, isn’t the first time I haven’t been present with my daughters. For example, my tween daughter talks super fast to me in the car while I’m driving from one lesson to the other, and I don’t entirely always hear everything she is saying. I mean, I’m trying to focus on the road, and listen to her speak.
She sounds like the character Six, from Blossom. Do you remember her? She was Blossoms friend that spoke super fast. You could only get the first and the last word. Well, that’s my tween daughter. There’s been times when she tells me a story super, super fast and then at the end, she responds, “Did you even listen to me?” Although I tried to listen, I obviously didn’t try hard enough, because I didn’tfully hear her story. I looked at her face with so much guilt and replied, “O.k, I heard the first and the last part.” I can see the disappointment in her face. It’s disappointing for her that she spent all of this time telling me the latest joke or drama at school and I lost her after the first couple of words because my thoughts wandered. Where do I have to be next? Hmm, I just heard her say that her friend called herself a pizza face, maybe I should make that a blog post? Oh crap, what time is it? I’m going to be late to grab Nyomi. What I should be doing in these moments is focus, look my daughter directly in the face, ask her to slow down her words and show her that I’m listening.