family – Heather Hoyt

In church one day, I heard a woman say that quality time mattered more than quantity time. My mom happened to be visiting, and whispered to me that quantity time definitely still mattered.

I was looking at a journal entry when I had little tiny kids, and I wrote that I found it very difficult to sit and entertain my two-year-old every day. I felt too much guilt because I couldn’t always make the quantity time into quality time. I’ve been a stay-at-home mom and a homeschooling mom, and for a white, I spent basically every moment of my life with my children. It was hard, and to be honest, I didn’t love it. But I still think it was valuable to be there, even if I wasn’t always enjoying myself.

Because often the quality times don’t happen unless there is quantity time first. I try to plan out quality family time, but it often implodes on me, and all I get is kids who complain because it wasn’t near as fun as we expected. But then quality time can sneak up when I least expect it. The other day, I discovered an impromptu dance party in my living room.

There isn’t a tradeoff between the two–they work together, and to maximize quality time, I maximize quantity time first. But I’m going back to school full time in the fall and I won’t be home as much. My kids will all be in school full-time. We also like running around to various sports and activities. How do we keep spending time together as a family?

First thing: turn off screen time and increase green time. The impromptu dance party only happened because it was a no screen day. Many studies show that screen time can have a negative impact on mental health and green time increased mental health outcomes. So going outside more, particularly as a family, is really beneficial for all of us.

Here are some other ideas:

If I’m not physically home, I can put up a camera that allows me to check on home and talk to those that are there.
I can write and leave notes for my kids.
I can wake up earlier and get ready before the kids are away so that I’m present before the kids go to school.
I can use the random minutes here and there. Car rides together. Late evenings. Intersections. Cooking dinner and doing dishes.
And I can involve my kids with what I am doing and what I am thinking.

And instead of looking only at days, I can look at weeks and months (I got this idea from Laura Vanderkam). I’m not maximizing time spent with my children on a daily basis; I’m maximizing it over weeks and months and years. I may not spend six hours with my kids every day, but I can spend three hours with them on the weekdays and 10 hours with them on the weekends. We can make up time with each other by going on vacation during summer break and using weekends for family time.

What are your ideas to maximize quantity and quality time with your kids?

I moved when I was five years old, and then I lived in the same house until I was twenty. I had the same bedroom for over a decade. Home was very much a specific place that I could rely on.

And then I moved out and I moved again and again and again.

We haven’t ever found a singular place to call home. The house I have lived in for the majority of my life still sort of feels like home in a way, but I’m now a visitor there.

For a while, my husband and I wanted to find someplace to call home. With all our moves, we knew that we hadn’t landed yet. We hadn’t found a place where we could settle down and live for years on end without thinking about moving again.

But more than that, I wanted a feeling of home. I wanted that place that was constant and unchanging. A place that felt reliable. A place that was always there. A place that felt more familiar than anything in the world.

I wanted a place where I could always feel like myself. A place I never had to pretend in. Somewhere where it was safe to laugh and safe to cry. Somewhere that would always forgive. A foundation to my life that never shifted.

Going home when I was a child was safety and peace. I was taken care of at home. I didn’t want anything more or less. I was happy.

I wanted that feeling again.

And after years of being an adult, I have realized that that feeling of home only exists when you are a child. Nowhere will ever feel like home quite like it did when you were young.

Because part of home was the fact that I had a mother and a father to take care of me and to take care of the house. Now I’m in charge.

So I’m worried about housing markets, interest rates, insurance, and bills. I’m worried about paint colors and furnishings. I’m worried about what’s for dinner and what I need to clean up next. I can’t ever sit and be completely still in my house again. Home is a feeling that doesn’t contain worry.

I can’t ever be completely at home because I am the one making the home. I am the one providing safety and peace. And while I can enjoy it in some ways, it will never be the same.

But that isn’t a bad thing. I am so grateful that I got that feeling of home when I was younger, because some people never have it in their lives.

And I know that my kids can feel how I did. That makes me happy–a different sort of happiness.

Home is different now. But different isn’t bad.

And I know that when this life ends, I’ll be able to find that feeling of home again, just like I felt as a child. Because I think that what I was feeling when I was kid–that feeling of safety and security and love–that was heaven.

Tag: family

Quality and Quantity Time With Your Kids

Loosing and Finding Home