Reflections on the importance of spending quality time with children and on the risks that young people face today, by Patrick Joyce.
Now that summer has arrived, and the dust has settled on Sean’s Junior Cert, our thoughts have turned to the family holiday in Spain.
Each year we try to get away for a few days, even though we can barely afford it. Three years ago, we went to Menorca, and had a great time. For the past two years, we’ve holidayed at home, in Donegal and Cork.
Looking after the farm
With full-time farming now almost a thing of the past in this part of the country, I am reluctant to call on any of the neighbours, as they have enough to do themselves. Ann’s brother usually obliges us. He’s a postman, and looks forward to coming down each evening and giving his children a taste of rural life. Being from the country himself, spotting a sick animal or noticing a ewe on her back from a distance is something that comes naturally to him. So, hopefully, he will be available again this year.
Ann keeps saying that this will probably be the last time we will all go away together as a family unit since Sean is getting to the stage where he would happily remain at home with his Gran. Thankfully, however, he has decided to come with us. Which means, as the Americans say, we can spend some “quality time” with the kids.
Need for quality time
By quality time, I mean playing a game of football with them or even sitting and watching the news together. But we rarely do things together as a family unit. Even when it comes to Sunday Mass, I find myself going to first Mass with Gran and Sean, while Ann brings the other children to second Mass, where Sandra is an altar girl.
Death of the family rosary
Modern day living is dominated by television, the great communication killer. It has influenced two generations, and is now working on this one. Have you ever seen a TV programme devoted to encouraging the family to say the rosary? I haven’t, and certainly our children haven’t. They would find it embarrassing at this stage, as it is not something they see being done. That is the power of TV.
And, of course, peer pressure rears its head again. Children do as they see others do. It is no problem getting them to serve at Mass. Younger siblings see the older ones doing so, thus it is a natural progression.
Perhaps a way of introducing the rosary to children would be through religion class at school. Part of the homework would be to kneel and pray with their parents. Perhaps a decade of the rosary could be said by the priest before the final blessing. It would be nice if it were to become a natural part of everyday life once more. As Fr Peyton once said, “The family that prays together stays together.”
Farmyard risks to children
It is a sobering thought that 38 children have died on Irish farms in the last eight years. The farm claims the lives of more children than any other place of work. Perhaps its dual role as a home and workplace explains why. The hazards facing farm children are many and varied but range from tractors and machinery to livestock and chemicals. With increased mechanisation on farms, the risks are greater nowadays.
Monitoring children isn’t confined to the farmyard. I think it’s ironic in an age where children are much more forward and ‘go ahead’ than we were at their age, that we seem to constantly ask where they are off to, what time they’ll be back at and who they are going with. The final parting seems to be, “Make sure you bring your mobile.” This isn’t confined to rural areas. Perhaps even greater vigilance is required in urban areas.
Less adventurous today
Our summer holidays were full of activity. Our version of Takeshi’s Castle was endless games of football, cowboys and Indians, or climbing trees. I recall, on one occasion, climbing a tree to raid a crow’s nest, despite repeated warnings from my father. When he came out calling for me to help flock the sheep, I remained still. Unfortunately, a crow’s egg happened to slip from my hand and land on his brand new peak cap! That put an end to my climbing for a while. Nowadays, you’ll find kids walking the roads or stuck in a Playstation soccer game clad in Man.Utd. jerseys at 50 euro a time. That is as near as some of them ever come to playing football.
So I shouldn’t complain when I see our crew having a row over whether or not the ball crossed the line. Nor should I moan about the cost of the holiday when, as Ann says, this might be the last time we will all go away together as a family.
This article first appeared in Reality (July-August 2003), a journal of the Irish Redemptorists.
Yet we seemed to have had a lot more freedom when we were young. I recall days spent on the banks of the river with a rod and line. We never seemed to worry about the time. Though I’m sure my mother was concerned, we never took any notice of our lengthy ramblings. Today’s children don’t seem to have that same spirit of adventure. Blame the TV again I suppose. We had to act out our imagination physically while many children today merely sit in front of the box and get engrossed in programmes like Takeshi’s Castle. The family holiday is only one week out of the 10 that children have off school for the summer. For the rest of the time, I find that I’m constantly wondering where Jason and Sandra are. Richard, our youngest at three and a half, will be with his Gran while Sean can look after himself if he isn’t helping me. I wonder if our failure to do more things together as a family has anything to do with the fact that we have never said the family rosary. Like the way my father knelt at the bottom of the stairs and called out a decade while my mother knelt by our bedside as we answered in unison. Due to the ever-increasing day-to-day pressures on parents, there is less time available today for interacting with our children. At least, that’s what we are told. Of course, “the man who made time, made plenty of it” – it is only a matter of setting a little bit aside. As usual, Gran next door will keep an eye on the house while the annual deliberations over who will look after the farm have already begun.
