There is a wonderful opening scene in the film (not the TV show) About A Boy, where the protagonist, a dilettante Londoner, explains his disciplined approach to living a life devoid of complication or commitment. He calls it “Island Living”. It’s an ingenious system dividing the day into discreet units. Each activity (of no consequence) is worth so many units and so each day can be programmed with X number of units to compromise a full day of vapid and time-filling motion.
Which is the Bizarro world version of my life as a dad. I am so not rocking the “Island Living” lifestyle. My day is, increasingly, made up of these units of activity, yes. And while the ultimate consequence of any given action may be debatable, I am pretty sure that missing basketball practice, not taking the kids to the dentist or finding the time to read books to my kids (20 minutes is the national standard! Better do more!) would yield less than ideal outcomes for Eliza and Malcolm.
..having kids has made me into a far more productive and efficient person.
Which brings me to my hypothesis: having kids has made me into a far more productive and efficient person. Which is somewhat paradoxical, given there is so much less time to work with and far more demands on that finite time.
When there were no such demands on my time, there was no pressure to maximize. But now I will program entire days of weekend “leisure” time of chores, errands and activities just so I can around get a 30 minute window to run 2 miles. And you can damn well bet that I am making sure that I get the best 30 minute that I can. When I make dinner, I also use the time between prep and cooking / simmering / baking to make the next day’s lunch for Eliza. Or, after carefully planning pancake breakfast into morning haircuts for myself and Malcolm, only to discover that the barber was closed for the long weekend, we immediately pivoted into a hardware store run to pick up supplies for the next item on the To Do list without skipping a beat.
You could argue that half of these activities simply wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t decided to procreate. Which is true. But when I think about how much we are capable of as human beings, and how we generally fall so short, well, maybe its my kids that are helping me achieve more — and be more.
— Bad Papa East