A
man came home from work late again, tired and irritated, to find his five year
old son waiting for him at the door.
“Daddy, can I ask a question?”
“Yeah, sure, what is it?” replied the man.
“Daddy, how much money do you make an hour?”
“That’s none of your business! What makes you ask such a thing?” the man
said angrily.
“I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour?”
pleaded the little boy.
“If I tell you, will you leave me alone?” “Okay, I make twenty dollars
an hour.”
“Oh”, the little boy replied, head bowed down. Looking up, he said,
“Daddy, may I borrow ten dollars, please?”
The
father was furious.
“If the only reason you wanted to know how much money I make is so you
can borrow some to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march
yourself straight to your room and go to bed. Think about why you are being so
selfish. I work long, hard hours every day and don’t have time for such childish
games.”
The little boy quietly went to his room and
shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even madder about the little
boys questioning. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money!
After an hour or so, the man had calmed
down and started to think he might have been a little hard on his son. Maybe he really needed to buy something with
that ten dollars, and he really didn’t ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy’s
room and opened the door.
“Are you asleep, son?” he asked.
“No, Daddy, I’m awake,” replied the boy.
“I’ve been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier,” said the man.
“It’s been a long day, and I took my aggravation out on you. Here’s that ten
dollars you asked for.”
The little boy sat straight up, beaming.
“Oh, thank you, Daddy!” he yelled.
Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled
out some more crumpled-up bills. The man, seeing that the boy already had
money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money,
then looked up at the man.
“Why did you want more money if you already had some?” the father
grumbled.
“Because I didn’t have enough, but now I do,” the little boy replied.
“Daddy, I have twenty dollars, now. Can I buy an hour of your time to
play with me?”
…
This is a story of a person I would never
want to be…
I had tears falling down my cheeks when I
read the last sentence because through this story I could relate so much on the
father’s exhaustion, his irritability and annoyance after coming home from a
long day at work… I had tears because I never want my kids to feel they EVER
are in competition for my time with anything or anyone but I’m not sure of how
good of a job I do in managing my life and priorities…
Review
how you spend the hours and days of your week. Think about the amount of time your children spend with you.
Plan how you can weave your children into your social life and knit yourself
into their lives.
Learn
to listen to your children. It is easy for us to
tune out the talk of our children. One of the greatest things we can do for
them is to take them seriously and set aside time to listen.
To making time…
RosieSandz