Many of us have a fraught relationship with time. It seems there are never enough hours in the day to achieve all that is required of us. But how we choose to approach time — even as little as 15 minutes — can result in very different outcomes.
Here is an imagined conversation between me and my adult daughter that, when handled three different ways, has three very different consequences.
TIME AS SUPPORT
“Mum, I think I have a weird child!”
There is a sharp stab in my stomach as there so often is when I hear that tone in my daughter’s voice. “He’s doing that ‘chin thing’ again Mum and I just can’t stand it. It makes me so mad at him.” She is speaking faster and faster.
“Slow down.” I say, “take a breath darling, you sound upset.”
There is a pause. I hear a sniff on the other end of the phone. Another stab in my stomach. I need to take a breath too, make enough time for this call. The time I take now, even though I am due to meet with a client in 15 minutes, will be a gift to my daughter and to my three-year-old grandson in the future.
“Tell me about the ‘chin thing’.” I pace up and down the hall as I prepare for another anxious tale of mothering from my daughter.
“Sorry Mum,” she says, “you probably don’t have time for this!”
“I’ve got time to hear more about this right now. Tell me more.”
As my daughter unburdens herself, I draw deeply on times past as a mother to her, on times faced with doubt and fear in the therapy room. And somehow time stretches backwards and forwards as I pull up from history what may help, whilst looking at the clock marching through those precious 15 minutes. Stretching time more. Making it enough.
TIME AS OPPRESSIVE
“Mum, I think I have a weird child!”
There is a sharp stab in my stomach, as so often the case when I hear this tone. I knew I shouldn’t have answered my daughter’s call. I only have 15 minutes before my next client and I like to prepare well. I really don’t have time for this, I think. The guilt I feel adds a sharpness to my voice.
“Darling, I can’t do this now. I have a client in a few minutes.”
There is a pause, a sniff from the other end of the phone. I sigh, “Okay! Quickly! Tell me what you think is weird.” I am clipped, hurrying her along and I hate myself for it. Why, oh why did I pick up her call? Now my preparation time is fast disappearing.
“Oh Mum, I’m sorry! You don’t have time for this do you? But I never know when’s a good time, as you always have clients who need you.”
“You’re right. I really don’t have enough time right now. Can we do this later?”
There is another pause, another sniff, “Okay,” I say, “tell me quickly.”
“Now I feel like I’m being such a hassle to you. I’m a terrible mother and a terrible daughter. I am so…”
“No you’re not.” I look at my watch. Only 10 minutes now and I haven’t set up the room, assembled my notes. Why did did I answer? And now look, I’m rushing her, upsetting her more. But why can’t she manage him better, why always involve me? I can’t micromanage her parenting from 300 kilometres away. She hears my sigh.
“All right. You’ve obviously got no time for me. For this. I’ll leave you to your precious clients.”
She hangs up. I stand with my silent, reproachful phone. The clock ticks relentlessly towards my next session.
TIME AS PRISON
“Mum, I think I have a weird child!”
I play the message once more on my answer phone. A stab in my stomach, always a prelude to the effort of finding the right amount of time to have a conversation with my daughter, in my tightly scheduled day.
I study the diary again, all those meetings that require my input in one form or another. My daughter’s tone heralds a conversation littered with pot holes of uncertainty and messiness. Once more, I am confronted by not knowing how I can help her, what’s expected of me. Above all, how long it will take.
I place my bag down, as I always do, on the console table in the hall. I put my keys in the shining pewter dish centrally positioned there. I check my watch. Time to feed the dog who gazes up at me in confident expectation that I will soon put his bowl down on his special feeding mat next to the back door in the kitchen.
I walk through to the kitchen, straighten the poster which always goes askew when the front door slams. And it was slammed with force this morning, in the rush to make it to the station for the 7.34 into the city.
I take off my shoes and carefully place them in their usual position on the shoe rack, near the dog’s bowl. I reach for my slippers. One is missing. The dog must have taken it, he often protests in this way at being left alone all day. I haven’t got time to look for it now as I have a video conference with colleagues overseas in five minutes.
No time to look for a missing slipper. No time to put on the kettle.
No time to call my daughter, the person I truly love most in this world. To respond to her voice, it’s tone, the baldness of the message: “Mum I think I have a weird child…”.
No time to devote to her S.O.S. from the turbulent seas of mothering a three year old.
I know all this but I have to stay on course with my timetable. Without it, I am lost in uncharted territory. We will both be lost.
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