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Do I Love Sushi more than My Kids?

The other night I was trying to make sushi rolls for dinner.  I emphasize the word “trying”.

If you’ve never done this before, imagine trying to roll your dinner up in a sticky piece of wet tape.  Even though I have successfully pulled this off on several previous occasions, it wasn’t going well this go around.  The stupid things were falling apart and it turns out I had more rice stuck to my arms than in the sushi!  And to make matters worse I had spectators.  Two of my sons wanted to watch ‘the master’ whip up some sushi (I whipped it all right).

I was under a lot of pressure and found myself becoming more frustrated by the minute.  And would you believe that right in the middle of all this my six year old had the nerve to ask me questions?  The audacity!  And he wouldn’t quit….question after question after question.  Plus he was fidgeting!

I just couldn’t work under those conditions.  I told him that if he couldn’t sit still and be quiet he would have to leave the room.  And guess what?  5 seconds later he was back at it!

That was it; I told him he had to leave.  And that’s what he did.  He quietly got up and walked out.  After standing there in silence, I came to the realization that at that moment I was not only failing at sushi, but also as a father.

What was going through his little mind?

“Dad loves that sushi more than he loves me.”  That’s what he was thinking.  Dang that stings!

I know this is not exactly a case of child abuse, but it demonstrates an important point:

Our children see anything that draws our attention away from them as competition for our love.

Through the lens of a six year old, this sushi incident was pretty black and white.  “I want to spend time with dad, but he doesn’t want me around because I’m less important to him than what he’s doing.”

Of course that’s not true, but perhaps it’s not entirely false.  Nothing in this world could ever be more important to me than my children.  But let’s take a closer look at what really happened.  If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, I would have to admit that in the heat of the moment, I placed more value on getting dinner completed than on my son’s feelings.  I justified my behavior by thinking that what I was doing was really important, that he’ll get over it soon enough and probably forget it even happened.

That’s what we do right?  We rationalize; we try to convince ourselves that there’s a good reason to do a bad thing.

But there is only way to describe my behavior:  selfish!  It’s so easy to get caught up in what we’re doing and put ourselves first.

So who are your children’s competitors?

Maybe you’ve never had a similar incident with raw fish, but there’s a good chance you can relate to my story.  What competes with your child for your attention?...a hobby?....career?....television?  We all have a plethora of things in our lives pandering for our attention, and many of them are legitimate.  But that’s not the point.  We need to demonstrate to our kids through our actions that our love is unconditional.  They only know what we show.  We do this by making the most of the opportunities we have with them, and quite simply putting their feelings before our own selfish wants and desires.

If I had a second chance, I would forget about trying to form a perfect sushi roll and focus more on involving him in the process and just have fun with it!   Wouldn’t that send a different message to an impressionable child?

The great news is that we do have second chances….and third, and fourth, and fifth chances.  It’s never too late to change.  It’s never too late to improve a relationship.  Kids are very forgiving, that’s probably why we take their feelings for granted so often.  But there comes a point in a relationship where too many withdrawals from the emotional bank account result in bitterness and a loss of trust.  Let’s not let that happen with our children.  We love them too much.  Let’s make sure we show it.

I'd be interested to hear your take on this.  Maybe your a sushi freak and see nothing wrong with it.  Please comment below.