The Paradox of Racing Time in Parenting

To say that I’m time-obsessed would be an understatement. But it is also true that I was not like this all my life. I have always been the laid-back kid who never feels the urge to rush. I took my own sweet time to get around to doing anything.

I took time to warm up to people. I took time to understand a new concept being taught. But something about having my own kids changed my entire perspective.

The clock-obsessed lady was hiding under the surface of that calm, slow little girl. Now everything that I do revolves around the clock. I have to finish cooking by 10, sit with my son to do his homework from 4:30 to 5:30, take my daughter to a class at 6, pick up my son from his class at 4:30 and so on so forth. The time obsession has moved on to such level that I get impatient if I feel any member of my family seems to be relaxed, a little too relaxed in my opinion, especially if we are all getting ready for some event.

And of all the events, doctor’s appointments are the worst! The fact that you have to be somewhere at a fixed time can get your blood pressure raising very high. And if you add traffic in to this mix, it can really cause you to hyperventilate.

So you’re sitting there, not moving an inch, in the midst of the worst traffic of your life (to be honest, they all seem like that), one eye on the road hoping the car ahead of you will move and another eye on the ticking clock, your pulse raising with every increase of the minute hand.

You sit there wishing that you had started earlier than you did from home. You sit there trying to resist the urge to say some mean things to the guy who cut in front of you, after-all the whole point of this whole circus, the apple of your eye, your little son is sitting right behind you. You wonder why did everyone have to step out of their house exactly on the same day and at the same time when you were running late just a few minutes,  only to find that now you’re running a lot more than a few minutes late. And as you have nothing else to do, you drum on the steering wheel, make loud sighing noises and the merciless clock just keeps ticking and ticking and ticking.

For a second, you wonder if all the clocks in the world should be trashed in some dumpster for mocking your helplessness and then let out another huge sigh and drum some more on the steering wheel. Finally, after what seems like zillion minutes, the traffic lets out, and you feel like you’re flying through the streets.

Your turn to mock the clock. And so the dance continues, you win some you lose some.

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