I was a teenager the first time I heard of Quality Time. It didn't take me but a minute to figure out that the news had reporting the findings of this study completely wrong.

I am a parent of 2 (about to be 3). My wife and I both work as professionals. We are both tired when we finish a day's work. We are often frustrated and wish to simply plop ourselves down in front of a book or the TV. We need time to decompress and take care of ourselves. Our fatigue leads us to ask "Is Quality Time more important the Quantity?" or "Can they just watch TV tonight?"

Fatigue and stress make us look for an easier path. However, we instinctively know the answer is NO. Otherwise we wouldn't ask.

Here are reasons as I see them:

1. People who you spend little time with are acquitances or strangers not trusted advisors. As such they generally have little impact on your day-to-day or even life-altering decisions.
   
2. Quality time is a matter of seizing the right opportunity. You have to be present at the right time to seize the opportunity and opportunities can rarely be manufactured.
3. If work told you that you were the most important person there but paid you half of what you could make if you left for another company would you believe them? At work the currency is cash, with your children the currency is your time and energy.
   

The people you enjoy are people whose company you actively pursue. You plan to hang out with your best friend - movie, dinner, etc. The people you don't like you actively avoid. Everyone else falls into an indifferent category.

If we don't actively pursue spending lots time with our children what message should they take away from that? I think it is fair to say that children, even teenagers, will not care about our stress at work if it used as an excuse everyday.  They will reasonably assume they fall into the indifferent category.

A Stranger's Opinion is Worth Little

If I complain in public, a stranger may offer their opinion on how to fix my problem. However, we discount the opinions of most strangers because they don't know us or our particular situations in life. What worked for a stranger may or may not work for us.

If we don't spend a lot of time with our kids then we are little more than a stranger. How can we know what is going on in their lives? How can we appreciate their struggles or desires?  We can't. Knowing and loving this take time.

Quality Time with a Stranger

When was the last time you had quality time with a stranger? Most of us have had interesting conversations (while on a bus, or plane, or drunk) where we have momentarily bonded with a like-minded person. Sometimes these encounters even lead to life-altering decisions.

However, the vast majority of strangers you meet never have any impact on your life.  This is not the relationship I want with my children.

Obviously, if you don't try out for the baseball team then you can't hit the game winning home run. You have to be present to seize the opportunity.

Quality time with our kids is the same. Quality time can be manufactured but only occasionally and only for certain lessons in our childrens' lives. The rest is a matter of seizing the opportunies presented.

In order to hit the game winning home run you have to make the team. Making the team means hundreds if not thousands of hours of mundane practice fielding ground balls, pop-flys and hitting balls in the batting cages. Our children require no less.

At Work

At work we all know that valued employees are paid well, promoted early, or given job security above and beyond their coworkers. There is a tangible value that the company provides to the people it really values.

If your manager told you day after day that you do a wonderful, well above average job for your group/skill/etc. but then paid you significantly less than your peers, would you believe them? I think most of us would not believe that their manager valued them and would get frustrated and angry.

At Home

At home the tangible assets are our time and energy. They are the 2 most important assets we have. And we freely choose whether to give or withhold them.

If we are withholding our time and energy then our children have every right to feel to frustrated and angry. We have demonstrated that they are not the most important things in our world. We have demonstrated that we take them for granted.

We have also made one of the biggest mistakes we can in assuming it can be dealt with tomorrow. When we are honest with ourselves we know that when tomorrow comes we will ignore our children again and comfort ourselves with the rationale that they can, again, what until tomorrow.

To summarize, the choice between quality and quantity is really a choice of much greater consequence than it appears on the suface. We choose whether we

• are a parent or a stranger,
• are in the game, seizing opportunities, or oblivious to what is going on around us, and
  
• tell our kids we love them or demonstrate it.

We all need time for ourselves this doesn't make us a bad person. In fact demonstrating how to take care of yourself is a good example for your children. However, the difference between taking care of yourself and being negligent is a matter of degree. It is really easy to be lazy and withdraw from our own children.

There is no such thing as quality time without quantity.