What Your Kids Really Want For Dinner Is YOU.
Don’t Wait Till You’re Darn Near Dead To Recognize What’s Really Important In Life.

Written by Rich Harshaw.

Which is why I was so sad when I read his obituary written on the last page of an issue of Inc. magazine a few years ago. To be sure, the article extolled his many dazzling business accomplishments. But it also revealed a side of Miller that very few people probably ever saw. The article featured several quotes from Larry’s son Greg, who is now the CEO of the Larry H. Miller Group:

“He spent a lot of time at work as I was growing up. As a teenager, I resented that.” And Dad didn’t hand out praise, no matter how hard I worked or how well I performed,” Greg says.

But as Larry Miller’s health failed last year, he took stock. He publicly voiced regrets about missing his kids’ childhoods. “In his final months, he kind of let his guard down,” Greg says. “He became the dad and the leader and the mentor that I wished he would’ve been. He was just a good guy. It was really enjoyable to work with him the last six months of his life.” (Inc. Magazine, Jeff Bailey, May 2009)

The last six months? Ouch.

Several weeks earlier I had been having a discussion in a men’s group my church; the conversation was about the challenges we face now in raising a family versus 100 years ago. The question was then posed, “What scares you most about raising a family today?”

Some people brought up important topics like moral decay, substance abuse, and how kids nowadays just seem to be getting soft because things are so easy (especially compared to 100 years ago!). As the discussion progressed, a thought kept coming to my mind that turned out to be a foreshadowing of Miller’s obituary I would read months later. I voiced my concern to the group: I’m afraid that as parents we will be willing to ‘pay the price’ to get ahead in the world, but we won’t stop to ‘count the costs’ of that success—measured in relationships.

I didn’t have to look far to get proof of this, either. Like, in the mirror.

My case is even worse than Larry Miller’s. And not because I’ve abandoned my kids, either—I haven’t. In fact, as a business owner, I’ve always been able to make my own schedule, and that schedule has accommodated my six kids more often than not. I come and go as I please, and I only travel when I want to travel. My typical work day lasts from 6:30 to 4 pm, and I spend a good part of the rest of the time with my wife and kids. I haven’t worked more than three Saturdays in 20 years of owning a business. Zero Sundays. Ask my wife and kids and they’ll tell you that I’m a good father who spends plenty of time with my kids. Always have. Assume I always will.

So my regret is not my own family. It’s the families of those who have worked for me. See, as a young hotshot marketing guru (before I got into contractor marketing), I decided that making a comfortable six-figure income wasn’t enough. So I decided to expand my business by hiring a team of seminar giver/sales guys who would travel the country and make presentations and build my business for me. At the peak of that operation in 2003, I employed nine full-time salesmen who would spend 2 to 4 weeks a month on the road. Seven of them had children at home. But they made the sacrifice because the money was so good.

When my business imploded in 2004 (long story, I’ll save it for another time), the team disbanded and everyone went their own way to seek their individual greener pastures. But the ugly, Larry Miller-like underpinnings were already becoming evident.

I caught one of the salesmen stealing from me—using his corporate credit card to make personal charges. He was earning good money, but he was also spending it rather fast. His family thought he was “the man” with the big income, the fancy cars, the nice house, etc… but when he couldn’t earn enough to keep up the facade, he resorted to “borrowing with every intention of paying it back,” or at least that’s what he said when he got caught. When you get caught paying your water bill on a company credit card, you’ve got a problem.

Another sales guy—one who begged as many weeks on the road as he could get—had two teenage kids. The older one seemed to be turning out okay. The younger one seemed to be finding himself in jail on a regular basis, a result, no doubt, of a serious drinking problem he had developed. His dad—my employee—found himself falling into the same battle with alcoholism, and worse.

Then last year I received word that one of the ex-sales guys had stage 4 follicular lymphoma. Here’s all you need to know about that: It’s a kind of cancer, it’s really bad, the survival rate is low, and there are only 4 stages. And all I could think about was all those weeks this guy had spent away from home, away from his kids, in search of the almighty dollar. What a schmuck. Not him. Me.

In law, an accomplice is a person who actively participates in the commission of a crime, even though they take no part in the actual criminal offense. A getaway car driver is an accomplice, even though in the absence of an underlying offense (robbery), keeping a lookout or driving a car would not be an offense.” (Wikipedia)

Lock me up and throw away the key.

You say, “These were grown men who made their own decisions.” True enough. Doesn’t let me off the hook, though. I chose to make opportunities available that would tear away at the fabric of other people’s’ families—even as I sat cozily at home watching movies and playing basketball with my own kids. There’s no wiggle room there.

We have to decide, once and for all—what is really important? The answer, of course, is our relationships with the people we love, especially our spouses and children.

Unfortunately, all of the statistics are pulling in the wrong direction. People are finding more and more satisfaction in everything and anything OTHER than raising children these days. According to Harvard psychologist and happiness expert Daniel Gilbert, “researchers have found that people derive more satisfaction from eating, exercising, shopping, napping, or watching television than taking care of their kids. Indeed, looking after the kids appears to be only slightly more pleasant than doing housework.” (Stumbling on Happiness, 2006)

Ostensibly, sitting in a Cleveland airport Hyatt watching Seinfeld reruns between seminar sessions and closing meetings is also more pleasing than raising children. Or at least the BMW that the Cleveland trip pays for is. Maybe both.

So if our children are really of utmost importance, how do we juggle all of our time demands? Let me interject some advice from former Brigham Young University President, Dallin H. Oaks:

Many breadwinners worry that their occupations leave too little time for their families. There is no easy formula for that contest of priorities. However, I have never known of a man who looked back on his working life and said, “I just didn’t spend enough time with my job.”

A friend took his young family on a series of summer vacation trips, including visits to memorable historic sites. At the end of the summer he asked his teenage son which of these good summer activities he enjoyed most. “The thing I liked best this summer,” the boy replied, “was the night you and I laid on the lawn and looked at the stars and talked.” Super family activities may be good for children, but they are not always better than one-on-one time with a loving parent.

In the last generation children are far busier and families spend far less time together. The number of those who report that their “whole family usually eats dinner together” has declined 33 percent. Family mealtimes have been shown to be a strong bulwark against children’s smoking, drinking, or using drugs. There is inspired wisdom in this advice to parents: What your children really want for dinner is you. (Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign Magazine, November 2007; edited for space)

In the end, we just have to hunker down and make the commitment. We have to sacrifice our time. We have to settle for less money and fewer things. We have to play dolls with our daughters and Legos with our sons. We have to endure one hot and sweaty baseball game after another, and cry with our teenage daughter when she gets stood up. We have to turn off the TV, close the laptop, shut off the iPhone, and CONNECT with our kids. We have to be willing to get our hands dirty.

We might even have to be willing to walk into the ocean wearing a suit.

José de Souza Marques did just that—and it wasn’t even his own kid. Irrelevant—you’ll love the principle of this story. Marquez was a local church leader in Fortaleza, Brazil who became concerned about one of the boys he had stewardship over by the name of Fernando Araujo. Fernando, now an adult, shared his experience:

“I became involved in surfing competitions on Sunday mornings and stopped going to my Church meetings. One Sunday morning Brother Marques knocked on my door and asked my nonmember mother if he could talk to me. When she told him I was sleeping, he asked permission to wake me. He said to me, ‘Fernando, you are late for church!’ Not listening to my excuses, he took me to church.

“The next Sunday the same thing happened, so on the third Sunday I decided to leave early to avoid him. As I opened the gate I found him sitting on his car, reading the scriptures. When he saw me he said, ‘Good! You are up early. Today we will go and find another young man (to take to church with us)!’ I appealed to my agency, but he said, ‘We can talk about that later.’

“After eight Sundays I could not get rid of him, so I decided to sleep at a friend’s house. I was at the beach the next morning when I saw a man dressed in a suit and tie walking towards me. When I saw that it was Brother Marques, I ran into the water. All of a sudden, I felt someone’s hand on my shoulder. It was Brother Marques, in water up to his chest! He took me by the hand and said, ‘You are late! Let’s go.’ When I argued that I didn’t have any clothes to wear, he replied, ‘They are in the car.’

That day as we walked out of the ocean, I was touched by Brother Marques’s sincere love and worry for me. He truly understood the Savior’s words: ‘I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick’ (Ezek. 34:16). (Elder Mervyn B. Arnold, Ensign Magazine, May 2004)

Can’t we show the same level of compassion, concern, and love for our own children? I sincerely hope the answer is a resounding YES. Let’s recommit ourselves one more time to focusing on priorities that are truly important. Let’s find the time and energy to make positive things happen in the lives of those around us. Let’s show our love not just by words, not just by “things”, but by giving the most precious gift we can to our loved ones—our time. Gordon B. Hinckley once commented that we should “work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact, everything does count on it.”

It’s too bad Larry H. Miller didn’t realize that until it was too late.

But it’s not too late for you.

Quality Time
Anonymous

My kids were still young
A job I couldn’t refuse
Promised wealth and promotion
There was nothing to lose

I signed on for one year
To give it a try
Sixty-five hours a week
But hey, I wouldn’t die

My children were young
Nine, six and two
But I’m doing it for them
You know how dads do

My wife was concerned
Won’t the kids miss their dad?
They’ll hardly see you at all
They’re sure to be sad

I said, “Don’t worry my dear
If it’s too much I’ll resign
And though I won’t be there often
When I am we’ll spend quality time”

So I began the adventure
Climbing up that old ladder
A year passed, three, then five
But it didn’t matter

My family was safe
Their needs were all met
House, cars and college
Our finances were set

And time with my family
I gave them my best
I was gone 5 days a week
But they got the rest

Unless I was tired
Too wiped out from working
But we hung out together;
Father-son channel surfing

So to make it all up
For the time spent away
We planned big events
I took the whole family to play

It was the best I could do
With that schedule of mine
A week or two in the summer;
I gave them quality time

Ski trips and Sea World
We’ve done it all
Last year it was Maui
For a week in the fall

But those long weeks away
In the back of my mind
I thought “What’s happening today
With my girl who’s now five?”

Is she learning to read?
Or sing, or tie her shoe?
I missed her recital
Or did I miss two?

And my nine year old boy
He’s thirteen or fourteen by now
He’s becoming a man
His coach is showing him how

Last summer’s camping was great
We’ve been on several big trips
But what’s he thinking today?
Is it girls? Is it zits?

My wife, now, she’s different
She understands why
I must sacrifice time
If we want to get by…

But then again lately
She seems distant and strange
Like she’s greeting a foreigner
When I get off of that plane

I ask how it’s going
She assures me all’s fine
Then we all rush off together
To spend some of that quality time

But it doesn’t seem right
Everything’s moving so fast
I’m missing the small stuff
It’s all lost in the past

Then it struck me one day;
I was living a lie
There really is no such thing
As quality time

For the quality moments
That bond father and son
Can’t be planned on the schedule
For 2 weeks, starting June 1

They happen each day
In moments least expected
And if not present they pass
You remain unconnected

Moments in the morning
Over a bowl of Captain Crunch
Or in the car running errands
Or while you’re just eating lunch

The way you comfort with love
When she skins up her knee
Says more to those kids
Than five days in Disney

Your son knows you care
When you give lame advice
Or watch him play soccer
Or when you comb out the lice

So don’t pretend you’re a man
Let alone a father or husband
If you won’t sacrifice time
To prove that you love them

Your position, your money
Your fame—that’s all fine
But what a family needs
Is a man’s everyday time

The times you’ll remember
When you’re old and gone gray
Come at unlikeliest moments
Woven in the fabric of each day

So woe to the man
Who sells his soul in his prime
And trades the moments of life
For that quality time

© 2014 – 2016, Rich Harshaw. All rights reserved.