FAMILY TIME

When it comes to family time or any time that requires bonding I tend to see phones as a great distraction. I believe that one of the ways to show that you value a person is by the time you spend with them, but then there is the quantity of time you spend with a person and there is the quality of time you spend with them. When we talk about quantity, we talk about the number of times you are together, and if we must tell ourselves the truth, there is a great difference when you have someone around you, and when you feel someone close to you. The difference is in the intentionality of the person you are with. What is the point of having someone close to you and they are on their phone all day. Except both of you are like my partner and I who could be chatting with each other and sending each other reels even though we are together.

Photo by Magenta on Unsplash

The reason I will always support the ban of phones during family time is because family time should be sacred to the family, bonding as a family is not just about being together and eating together. It is about sharing memories and making sure everyone gets to share in those memories and remember them. Bonding requires a lot of intentionality and one of the reasons I see couples struggle to bond in their relationships is because they never did it in their family and thus do not know the importance of it. My mum would always say in Yoruba “it’s in the face that people talk”. This simply means communication can be in different ways, but bonding requires both physical, mental and emotional presence. If these criteria are not met, it is usually because one party is distracted, and when one party is distracted the other party immediately feels it.

I remember over the weekend I took my partner on a date and while we were sitting to talk, I was talking about something and I realized for a moment her attention was on her phone. Immediately I felt I was talking rubbish until you put it down and decided to listen. I could tell she was distracted intentionally, and I think it was because I was unknowingly getting on her nerves. This just shows that I thought I was bonding, but for some reason she wasn’t feeling it and the next best thing she thought about was her phone, but imagine if the phone wasn’t even there, she would have found another way to tell me she wanted to do something different or talk about something different which is the next best thing to do. So yeah if it were up to me, phones would be left somewhere else. I think it now a natural instinct though because when we feel bored we just go to our phones instead of fighting the boredom together. If phones are not around, we will become more creative with our bonding time.

THIS IS MY RESPONSE TO HIVE LEARNER'S PROMPT FOR WEEK 201 EPISODE 2