Take off for your children’s milestones

“Order copies for you and extra copies for family and friends using this order form.”

Until I received the offer from our son’s school enabling the purchase of a DVD showing middle-school “closing exercises,” I hadn’t planned on attending the event. I wanted to be there, but the timing conflicted with work, and I hadn’t regarded his transition from eighth to ninth grade as the sort of thing one misses work to attend.

That the e-mail popped on my screen while I was hosting a national radio show didn’t help resolve my new quandary. I shared it, extemporaneously, with the audience. The phone lines exploded. Half the callers told me to go (“once in a lifetime”), while the others said it wasn’t a real graduation (“teach him the value of work”). The latter were reminiscent of a bygone era.

“The way mothers and fathers spend their time has changed dramatically in the past half century. Fathers have nearly tripled their time with children since 1965,” according to a 2013 Pew Research Center study titled “Modern Parenthood: Roles of Moms and Dads Converge as They Balance Work and Family.” Although “50 percent of working dads say they find it very or somewhat difficult to balance these responsibilities,” fathers spend an average of 7.3 hours per week on child care, a dramatic increase from the 2.5 hours spent per week in 1965.

DADS STILL VALUE WORK

The time spent on child care includes engaging with children but does not include some of the results of having children, such as household chores, which have risen six hours per week over the last decades. “While a nearly equal share of mothers and fathers say they wish they could be at home raising their children rather than working, dads are much more likely than moms to say they want to work full time,” says the study.

Nonetheless, this was a completion of middle school in anticipation of beginning high school. The final assemblage of this group. How could I just order a DVD when it was possible, albeit inconvenient, for me to be there in person?

My solution was to arrive at my radio studio shortly after 6 a.m. and record 90 minutes of timely news content, which would then play “as live,” allowing me to get to the chapel service and make it back to resume the final 90 minutes “live.” Having put that content in the can, I jumped in my car and arrived just as the students began to process. Making eye contact with our son was a bonus. While the opening chords of “Pomp and Circumstance” played, I settled into a pew, next to my wife. Then the head of the middle school stood to offer his remarks; I checked my watch and began to worry. The program noted another musical offering was still to come, and then the presentation of the class. Damn the alphabet. My radio show was already on air, the 90-minute tape was playing, but I was 25 minutes from the studio. By the time they reached the S’s, I might have to leave.

Fortunately, the reading of the names moved at a rapid clip. At what I calculated to be the latest time that I could stay, I finally heard the name Smerconish. I watched him shake the hands of the school leadership and return to his seat, and quickly exited. I made it back to my studio just as the commercial break was ending and I was due on air. I reported to the audience that I hoped I’d both fulfilled my fatherly duty and taught something about the importance of work. It felt good being there, albeit with the pressures of juggling family and work.

Philadelphia Inquirer