April 19, 2011
Counting Contact with My Kids

I am my kids' mom, and my husband's wife. I left a top corporate job at the world's leading software company to do so. I was sitting at home the other day with my twin boys (10 months) and some of my other children "playing" with them. I say "playing" because they played, mostly by themselves, but I was intermittently called to be their play partners on and off.

 

I wanted to tell your listeners how important "being there" is, for your children. My husband called me at 12:35 to tell me he had a dinner with his father and would be home a little late that night. I was having so much fun enjoying my children, and thought of you. I noticed how many times each kid would come over to me and either look me in my eyes, touch me, climb on me, ask a question, tell me something they knew and more. There were so many ways they communicated with me - and it amazed me to think of what these "moms" are missing. I thought it would be fun to count how many times one of my twins 'communicated' with me from that time in the day, until my husband came home at 8:30ish. So I chose one twin and counted - for the rest of the afternoon.

 

This ONE child would do many things to communicate. Some of those things included: climbing on my leg and crawling away to play put his arms out to me to pick him up and then 'ask' to be put right back down to play again a second later shaking a toy until it got my attention and I smiled at him and then he would go back to playing, whining when he hurt himself trying to stand and falling back down - because he wanted me to tell him it was OK - and he went right back to playing reaching up and rubbing my cheek just staring into my eyes for a couple of seconds and so much more I could go on for hours. I was astonished to learn my baby communicated with me over 133 times from 1:00 to 8:30. But what made me the most happy that I am staying at home, was not the fact they needed a play buddy, but the fact that most of this contact was my baby needing reassurance I was there for him, in one way or another - and I was. I imagined him looking into a stranger or babysitter's eyes in the same way; touching her hand instead of mine; crying when he fell, only to be ignored or minimally comforted. It breaks my heart to know these career women who insist their child is better off to be in day care, will NEVER know what they are missing. Most importantly, they will NEVER know how much their CHILD is missing.

 

Thank you for helping some of us see we have the most important job in the world.

 

M.

Posted by Staff at 10:29 PM