Making Time for Family

By: ​Mary Carver, P.H.Ec.

Source: Mary Carver, P.H.Ec.

Professional Home Economist (P.H.Ec.) Mary Carver gives suggestions to help build memories with your family this Family Day.  

The family has been described as the most basic and important unit in society. Most people believe that families build character, values, and teach love and respect. Many parents make family-time a priority over all else. Others maintain that healthy, happy families create healthy, happy communities.

Once considered perfect was a family with two parents of opposite sex living with two children - suggesting an idealism. There’s no such limiting definition today. All families are precious.

The Vanier Institute of the Family defines family as “any combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption/placement and who, together, assume responsibilities for variant combinations of some of the following:

• physical maintenance and care of group members
• addition of new members through procreation or adoption
• socialization of children
• social control of children
• production, consumption and distribution of goods and services; and
• affective nurturance – love.”

It seems that finding time to spend together is more difficult today than ever. We live in an era of time-saving conveniences, fast food, fast cars, flexible work schedules, instant banking, express checkouts and high-speed Internet.
Does it seem that you are working more and playing less?
Indeed, families today face unprecedented demands on their personal time.
“The proliferation of technology has created impatience, an intolerance of slowness and expectations of instantaneous response. Contrary to expectations that we would have more leisure, the work ethic has intensified. Families are both caught by, and contribute to, a cult of busyness that seems only to intensify,” says Kerry Daly, professor and chair at the University of Guelph, in his paper “It Keeps Getting Faster: Changing Patterns of Time in Families.”
In Ontario, Family Day is celebrated annually on the third Monday of February.  Ontario Professional Home Economists (P.H.Ec.) offer the following suggestions to celebrate on February 18, 2019:

• Begin a new tradition that can be continued for years to come.
• Get outdoors. Play together - cross-country ski, bird-watch or skate.
• Enjoy a walk in the forest - take along a winter picnic.
• Bake a batch of cookies from scratch - use Grandma’s recipe.
• Cook a special meal, allowing every family member to play a role.
• Make hot cocoa from scratch.
• Play a board game. Do a family puzzle. Take a family photo.
• Read a book together, sharing thoughts and feelings about the plot.
• Review photos and reminisce about the good times you've shared.
• Organize photos; make sorting and labelling a family event.
• Build a family tree. Start with what you already know and work backward.
• Build a snow family or a snow house.
• Gather vacation souvenirs, scrapbook or display them.
• Visit an aging relative or someone who is shut-in.

The important thing is to be together, take advantage of the civic holiday, embrace laughter and build memories. Family time is about finding a life balance, so be sure to seize the day to help maintain your own mental health.  

Don’t get the day off work? Unfortunately - not everyone does! Don’t sweat it - just make your own Family Day date and personalize it! Families are important enough to be celebrated more than once a year.
 
Mary Carver, P.H.Ec. is an Ottawa-based Professional Home Economist and member of the OHEA Board of Directors.