Has Modern Society Taken Our Family Time Away?

Should we enjoy our time with our children before it's too late?

After a great weekend with my beautiful family, I couldn't help but think, that we as parents are being robbed of our quality time with our children, by our lovely modern society.

Let me delve into this further so I can get my point across and hopefully you as parents see it too.

OK, so I work from home Monday to Friday, my wife works from Monday to Friday in an office and this leaves the weekend to spend sometime with each other and our children. 

Now even with the above work pattern a lot of people say 'we are quite lucky to have these working days / hours and have the weekends off'. Yes I agree to some degree, however it is with great sacrifice that we manage to have a weekend to spend together.

Our overall household income could be double... Yes double, if I was still working as a lorry driver, driving all over the UK and on occasions parts of Europe, however I would hardly see my wife and children, and we would also have to rely on childcare, as my wife starts work around 8 am and finishes work around 5:30 / 6 pm.

So a great sacrifice has been purposely made by ourselves as we believe, time with our children and each other is far more important than a salary.

And before people say 'you could afford to give your children things and set up a good future for them' etc etc.

My wife and I have covered this, as our salaries are enough for us to live, go on holidays, have two cars and save for our children's University education. (should they wish to further their education, but the savings are there for them)

I never seen myself as a person who works from home. I have always gone out to work, but we found that it just wasn't for us, where my wife and I were working and our children having to be dropped to school and picked up from school everyday by a childminder.

We have friends who regret their choice to work all the hours under the sun whilst their children were in childcare, as they missed out on so much with regards to their child's development. They missed out when their child started crawling for the first time, when their child started walking and the child minder knew much more about the child than they ever did... Surely this is wrong! They deeply regret it now.

Our view is; we decided to have children, we love our children and therefore should be able to watch them develop and take them to and from school etc.

So with the above in mind, we found that by me working from home and doing most of the house work and the school runs etc as my wife goes out to work Monday to Friday, we have more balance within our family home and our children do benefit from our current lifestyle choice.

Don't get me wrong it was hard at first to establish a work pattern for myself, as there were many people (friends and family) who thought they could keep asking me for favors. They didn't understand that when I get home from the school run in the morning, I am actually working. Nope a lot of people thought well he's only at home i'l give him a ring he wont mind giving me a hand with something....  Well I had to be assertive and say no. I work from 10 am until 2:30 pm Monday to Friday, so unfortunately i'm unavailable.

Would they be able to contact me and ask me for a favor if I was driving 500 miles through the UK in my truck? 

No, so It's exactly the same thing!

Anyway, moving on;

Many people work many hours throughout the week. Many people choose not to work any hours throughout the week, but our modern society is hellbent on making everyone of us work longer hours, more days and for a very sad hourly rate / salary.

Well I am really against people working 40 to 50 hours per week on minimum wage and barely affording to pay the bills!

Not only are families struggling to get by, they are also missing out on a lot of their children's childhood. And is it through choice???  NO.

I won't go into sums here but in general we work all week / month, get paid, pay the bills and we start all over again.

We go to work all week / month, see our children for about an hour / two hours in the morning and maybe 2/3 hours in the evening and then we start again.

It's one big cycle and before we know it our children are in their 20's, getting married and you have a little person calling you Nan / Granddad...

Look at it this way;

We spend around an hour or two with our children in the morning......   What are we actually doing with our children? 

We are getting everything ready for the day ahead i.e Showers, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, sorting packed lunch, getting dressed, brushing hair and out of the door before you run out of time.

Yes that's great quality time with our children isn't it? OK so it has to be done.... But what about after the busy day.

Some may be in a position to pick up their children from school but the way the government want it, is for us parents to work all day until 5 pm and for a childminder to pick our children up from school and take care of them until we pick them up. That's why when policies are being thrown around before every election in a bid to win votes, they promise increases in childcare etc...  No thank you politicians, we want family working hours!!!

I am not suggesting for one minute, that we should have a two hour working day and earn a hefty salary. No, I am suggesting more options for families, more flexibility and support for working families. (0 hour contracts must go for a start).

So lets have a look at this then shall we....

Say the average person finishes work at 5 pm. We won't actually be picking our children up until around 5:30 / 6 pm due to traffic etc. Then we have to get from the nursery / childminders to our home providing you don't have to pop to the shop for milk, bread etc So we can assume we will be home around 6:30 / 7 pm.

WOW..... We get through the door of our homes, get dinner on, get our children into their PJ's, read the book / homework  that came home from school with them, eat dinner, bush teeth, go through their hair with the nit comb and put them to bed (maybe a bedtime story) and by now we are look at the clock and it's around 9 pm!!!!

So, during the evening we have spent time with our children, but doing what exactly?

Well the above just shows that even though we pick our children up around 6 pm and put them to bed at 9 pm (which is a late bedtime for children under 10 years of age) we are actually spending 3 hours with our children, but most importantly the quality of that time isn't great. 

And let's not forget about our adult rest time! 

After the children are in bed, we still got washing up to do, ironing to do, a clothes wash to do. Before we know it it's 10:30 pm and only now we manage to sit down with a glass of wine / coffee and put our feet up.

Let's not over look families with a  family pet either. Even more duties.

Overlook / Outcome;

So we have established we spend a grand total of around FOUR hours a day with our children and these four hours are things we need to do. Eat, shower, dress, homework, etc etc.

Is our way of life good for anyone?

Well yes...  It's great for the tax man and that's about it to be honest. I do not see anyone else benefiting from all the above. OK so people may choose to work and live like the above mentioned, but 8 out of 10 people / families that I have asked, have too. So in turn are actually forced too!

This isn't a free country / world is it? What about human rights? Is it not our human right to want to be there for our children? Isn't it our human right to enjoy our life and have more quality time to ourselves? 

I believe things must change, not just for our sake, but for our children's sake as well.

If we are only around our children for four hours a day, Monday to Friday (many are forced to work weekends as well don't forget). How do we manage to build a strong relationship with our children? How do we show them all the love that we should show them, and how do we teach them right from wrong in such a short few hours per day? 

So it is really important that things change, as I for one really detest the way we are forced to live our life, and a change to the whole system with regards to work and family time would be beneficial for all.

My final word;

Try and make choices that will make your life a little easier, and remember that quality time with your children, wife, husband and yourself is more important than ANYTHING else.....