When Busyness Becomes a Substitute for Deliberate Parenting

My family and I recently returned from a memorable vacation to Yellowstone National Park. For three days, we were awestruck by the wild wonders of the park, including a dramatic eruption of Old Faithful, vast herds of bison roaming the Hayden Valley, and the majestic power of the lower falls rushing through the canyon. While in the park, we had no cell phone reception. Thankfully, we were forced to disengage from the perpetual call of responsibilities back home. Each evening, instead of checking our smartphones, we played board games in a cabin we rented in West Yellowstone.

Our vacation ended too soon and we quickly plugged ourselves back into real life. We came home just in time to reset the sprinkler system and save our dying front lawn, complete a late club soccer registration, and help our older son pack his bags for a summer sales job in California.

Admittedly, keeping busy has its advantages. The kids rarely complain of boredom and we don’t have much time to worry about whether life is meeting our expectations. But our time in Yellowstone reminded us of the benefits of slowing down and being more fully present with our children. We enjoyed a small taste of what Henry David Thoreau describes in Walden:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

We can learn to live deliberately without building a cabin in the woods, but it’s hard when we find ourselves in the midst of a dizzying schedule of daily activities. Busyness is a problem when we allow others to define and order our family priorities and when we stop paying meaningful attention to our children and their challenges. Most parents would like to live more purposely in the present, to take more time to notice their children, and to face neglected problems with an intentional strategy. But we too often lack the urgency or perhaps the wisdom to pause and purposely break free of our addiction to the busy life.

So how can we alter our frenetic lifestyles and embrace more deliberate parenting? First, we need to find a way to focus more consistently on our highest priorities. If it’s been a while since we’ve consulted with family members in defining and ordering those priorities, this is the first step. Without a well-defined list of family priorities, we’re like sailors lost at sea without nautical charts, driven wherever the winds take us.

Ideally, family priorities dictate which events and activities end up on our calendars each week. But even with careful planning, heavy social responsibilities inevitably take us off course. PTA meetings, church activities, sporting events, and music lessons are all important, but they can easily get out of control. This is why we need to set aside regular blocks of time to reexamine our lives and assess our priorities. A monthly family council can be used to check our bearings and set a new course, dropping unessential activities that are distracting us from quality family interaction and relationships.

Cutting down our list of daily activities can help us pay greater attention to parenting challenges that require patient and calm deliberation. Mental illness, bullying, learning disorders, and video game addiction are just a few of the formidable challenges faced by today’s parents.

Abraham Lincoln’s advice to lawyers applies to parents as well: “When I have a particular case in hand, I…love to dig up the question by the roots and hold it up and dry it before the fires of the mind.” Like Lincoln, we can cultivate the ability to give undivided attention to our most deeply rooted problems. Anger, frustration, and moving on to the next activity can all divide our attention and leave our problems unsolved.

French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil describes why it’s so difficult to maintain our focus: “Something in our soul has a far more violent repugnance for true attention than the flesh has for bodily fatigue.” She continues: “That is why every time we really concentrate our attention, we destroy the evil in ourselves.” Indeed, it’s usually easier to stay busy with shallow concerns than to dive into the deep end. But sustained focus on concrete problems opens our minds to fresh strategies and provides new hope for ourselves and our loved ones.

The key to more deliberate, intentional parenting is largely a matter of replacing busyness with greater focus: prioritizing family activities and removing unnecessary commitments, deliberating over our family’s challenges, and being fully present when we’re with each other.

Undivided Attention: Means to the End of Virtue

Like most parents, I’m concerned about my children’s overabundance of screen time. Tablets, smartphones, and laptops provide instant access to video games, social media, and streaming video, including an unlimited supply of favorite television episodes. Yet sometimes I’m almost as preoccupied as my children. Since my smartphone notifies me about text messages, emails, and important news flashes, I can be summoned at almost any time.

In our age of multitasking and short attention spans, it’s critical to understand that most virtues are built on sustained mental and physical effort. Without attending perceptively to the needs of others, we won’t cultivate a sense of justice in our communities. Without an active awareness of our personal duties and responsibilities, we won’t respond to the call for courage. And without focusing on the most salient aspects of a complex situation, we won’t develop practical wisdom.

As mesmerizing as it can be to immerse ourselves in a 24-hour news cycle, a never-ending feed of social media posts, or a well-crafted movie plot, such activities cannot produce firmness of character. While temporary diversions are appropriate in helping us achieve life balance, most of us embrace distraction as a way of life. We plug ourselves into the Internet.

Years ago, I came across an essay written by French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil (1909-1943). The title of the essay is “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God.” Weil claims here that “the real object and almost the sole interest” of school work is “the development of the faculty of attention.” No matter what subject we devote ourselves to, the result can be personal transformation and joy: “Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.”

Interestingly, Weil observes that one of the most transforming effects of school studies comes from turning our attention to mistakes. She suggests that we “take great pains to examine squarely and to contemplate attentively and slowly each school task in which we have failed . . . without seeking any excuse or overlooking any mistake . . . trying to get down to the origin of each fault.” Such actions will generate not only humility, but progress.

So how do we achieve this sanctified state of undivided attention? Weil argues that it is not to be “confused with a kind of muscular effort.” That type of strained approach is both useless and tiring. To produce the kind of transforming results advocated by Weil, we need to embrace the joy of sustained learning. We place our minds in an ardent state of expectation, waiting for truth as an unearned gift.

Weil explains why a state of undivided attention is so difficult to achieve: “Something in our soul has a far more violent repugnance for true attention than the flesh has for bodily fatigue.” She continues: “That is why every time we really concentrate our attention, we destroy the evil in ourselves.” In other words, to replace vice with virtue, we must actively focus our attention on observing, learning, and improving.

In describing Sherlock Holmes’s extraordinary ability to solve crimes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle paraphrases Thomas Carlyle’s definition of genius as “an infinite capacity for taking pains.” Sherlock’s gift lies in his perceptiveness and sustained concentration on the problem at hand. His colleagues failed to appreciate that his “smallest actions were all directed towards some definite and practical end.”

What prevents us from becoming the Sherlock Holmes of our own life’s problems? More than anything else, it is our lack of attention, the fragmented state of our minds. While we cannot completely escape our frenetic and distracted lives, we can carve out moments for undivided attention. We can wake up early in the morning, leave our smartphones off, and study for an uninterrupted hour. We can take a midday break for a 20-minute walk, disconnected from the Internet and focused on one of our most vexing challenges. We can sit down with family members or friends and fully understand how they’re feeling. These are the moments when we find the joy of learning and the pleasure of communion.

We all need to take time for relaxation and entertainment. But we have a greater need for character development and sustained attention to real life.