Ahem: Boredom

My Dad came down for a visit once and we were talking about something like this article I posted about yesterday. “Yeah,” he says, “but one regret you don’t want to have is not spending enough time with your kids.”

I think I’ve got that one covered.

My first thought when I read the article about being bored with your kids was “How horribly selfish,” then I thought about all the times I’ve had to read ‘The Very Busy Spider’ by Eric Carle and I got an inkling. I don’t agree that it’s a good attitude but I can sure understand it. Nine tenths of running a household is repetition. Bowls need washing and tables need wiping and they’re always going to be the same bowls and tables you wiped yesterday.

Having worked many other jobs plus one lengthy ‘career’ running a household isn’t much different and, frankly, you COULDN’T pay me enough to do some of the things I have to do on a daily basis. There isn’t that much money…

There IS more than enough love. That’s enough and that’s what it takes to fight through the frustration and the ‘boredom’ and the sheer insanity of spending half your day saying NO and the other half cleaning up because they didn’t listen so that you can actually get something accomplished.

Go ahead and try to reconcile it with your biblical interpretations of what a man should do. Go on…and after you bang your head against that wall for three or four years you can just get down to the business of taking care of your family and doing what you need to do as a Christian which is serve.