Learning the value of time well spent from playing “Hide & Seek” with my son
Being a mommy to a son means lots of play and he looooves to play. He doesn’t yet have any siblings, so I am his go to playmate, building legos, playing football, playing “Tickle MOMster” (a game I made up for us) or the good old hide and seek. Daddy will play too, but our son mostly requests mommy for playtime.
As a mother who is also a corporate executive and a creative entrepreneur, it usually means that I have a lot packed into the day, which in most cases leaves me tired by the time my ju ju royal says “Mommy can you play with me?” Sometimes my tiredness is so obvious that he says “Mommy, you can sit down for this one”, while he makes something gorgeous with his legos. Other times he says ”Let’s just lay down and watch something together”, knowing that mommy is about to fall asleep 15 minutes into whatever we are watching (probably something about dinosaurs or Spiderman or transformers, being seen for the 1500th time!). All he wants is some quality time.
One evening after a stressful work day, he reminded me that I had promised him that I would play “hide and seek” after I sent off my last email. It was now way past the scheduled end of the work day. I had made him wait and was feeling bad about cancelling on him, so as soon as I closed the laptop I started counting loudly to 10 as he ran, making gleeful sounds, searching for a hiding space. By the time I got to “Ready or not, here I come”, I realised that I was not ready to play. I was dog tired. The hide and seek announcement to warn hiders to get hidden had come to mean something new for me as a mother of a bright, outspoken, full of energy, thoughtful boy. Whether or not I was ready to play or give him the quality time he deserves…here I come.
That hide and seek session may have only lasted 5 minutes with us taking turns, but it was me keeping my promise to my child that when work was done, he would get to have moments with me. Joyful moments with me. He deserved it. I can always resign from my job, but I don’t ever want to resign from being his mother. My job can choose to terminate me for whatever reason, or make my services redundant, but I don’t ever want my child to fire me or deem my services as his mother irrelevant.
His KPI review matters to me. When he looks back on his childhood, he must remember that “Mommy made me know that I mattered”. That way he will approach the world knowing that he is somebody worthy of time, attention, respect and love; because I taught him that.
Often we are so focused on hitting the targets for work that we have nothing left for ourselves, for husband/wife (boyfriend/girlfriend) or children.
That pop-dung eureka moment playing hide and seek with my son, has made me think of how many times I have made little effort to pamper myself, or do passion projects, because I am too tired after doing my 9 to 5. I realised how much I need to do it for even 5 minutes- ready or not. Just the act of doing it for a little bit gives momentum, keeps us alive and gives joy. Pocket sized moments of joy are worth seeking out.
I know my life will get very busy, because there is a lot that I want to accomplish and must do. I will make time for who and what matters most and my family is at the top of that list.
So ready or not; tired or not…here I come.
By Sabrena McDonald Radcliffe- MBA, BA, Dip.Ed
