Photo Credit: Stephan Geyer via Compfight cc
I took my wife out to dinner last night for a belated valentines dinner.
Directly behind her were three families in three different booths. Each family had four kids ranging in ages from 5 – 12 years old.
And each family had a father—probably between 30 and 40 years old—glued to a smart phone. Dad number one had his ear phones in watching a video on YouTube. Dad number two was checking his email. And Dad number three was playing some card game online.
And the kids just sat there—unengaged—trying to figure out how to entertain themselves. (The wives too, but that is a very different post).
No conversations was happening. No interaction. No curiosity. No pursuit. No endowment.
The Sacred Privilege Of Fatherhood
Dads… Your kids learn by watching you. They are actively curious about the world and life and people and problems and themselves. They learn that they are valuable because YOU value them. They want to know you. They want to know what you think and what you do and what you did when you were their age.
They will pursue you, but only to a point. Once they receive enough distracted dismissals from you, they learn that dad’s not available or interested in them, and so they find something else to entertain them for the next five minutes… Just like dad.
Your Difficulty Is Understandable
For fathers who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, your enamorment with technology is understandable. We went from Ataris to Commadore 64’s to personal computers to cell phones to iPods to smart phones to tablet computers to wearable tech.
Everything is getting faster and easier and way cooler.
We like chasing whatever is new and shiny, Captain.
But the needs of the little human beings you’ve brought into this world have not changed. They only know you as you are now. The only novelty they know is when you DON’T bring your phone into the restaurant and instead bring a deck of real life cards and play Crazy 8’s while waiting for your food.
Fatherhood is about 18 years of intentional sacrifice—per kid. It’s about going old school and low tech for a few minutes every day. It’s about teaching them to use their whole bodies to interact and not just their thumbs while texting.It’s about giving of your whole self—your mind, your body, and your attention.
It will change your world—and theirs.