It's Never Too Late
By Molly Flinkman
@molly_flinkman
It was Monday evening, and our dinner table contained a hodge podge of food: pizza, reheated hamburgers and brats, steamed corn, and frozen peas our seven year old ate straight from the bag. The spread was a bit chaotic, perfect for the first day of school. The kids practically vibrated with stories while simultaneously teetering dangerously close to the chasm of complete and total meltdowns. It’s a dance, those first-week-of-school nights, to help our kids manage both their excitement and exhaustion.
I wanted to hear about all their days (and also calm down the frenetic energy), so I suggested we play High, Low, Buffalo.
We took turns telling the day’s highs, lows, and silliest moments. My husband, Jake, and I told the kids about the skinny fox we watched run across the fairway while we were golfing. We told them how Jake ran home to pick up my forgotten tennis shoes, filled up a jug of water, and then managed to forget my shoes too. The kids laughed at that, and I was happy to let them in on such a little moment they may otherwise never have heard about. They let us into their days as well. We heard about lunch and recess and how funny one of the fifth grade teachers was. We all laughed while our first grader told us he accidentally walked into his old kindergarten classroom on his way back from the bathroom, and everything about the dinner table in that moment felt important. Everything felt worth remembering and continuing.
We didn’t always have to be so intentional. Ten years ago, the first day of school came and went and changed exactly nothing about my day-to-day reality. I followed along as people posted porch pictures of their kids to Instagram while I sat in my basement with a two-year-old and a baby. We didn’t have to plan times to talk with the kids back then because I was literally always with them. I didn’t have to ask them about their days because they didn’t do anything that I didn’t see.
But that day—that most recent first day of school—our oldest daughter spent nine hours without us. She got herself through a full middle school schedule and managed to figure out where cross country practice was without any help from me. I didn’t know what she talked to her friends about. I didn’t know who she walked down the hallways with or where she sat at lunch. It feels strange to acknowledge this reality even though I know—I know—that time only knows how to march forward.
A week before school started, our whole family was in the minivan on our way to the pool when I asked our kids if they wanted to go to the zoo before school started.
Jake side-eyed me. “You trying to fit in everything before summer ends?” he asked.
Of course I was. Every August brings the same angst—the same feelings of worry that the kids and I didn’t spend enough quality time together even though we had barely been apart since the end of May. It feels both ridiculous and also rational, this feeling that I squandered too many of those slow mornings together. Many days this summer, it would suddenly be 11:00 a.m., and I would wonder, What have I even done today? without any real answers except that my flowers were watered and the dishwasher had been unloaded.
I often worry that I am around my kids more than I am with my kids; that I am cleaning a room or scrolling my phone or wandering aimlessly trying to figure out what exactly to do when I could just sit down with them instead. Should I have been in the basement with them more while they were playing with Legos? Should I have talked to them more? Could I have connected with them in different, more purposeful ways? The answers feel complicated. There are yeses, and there are nos.
Two days before school started, I took three of our kids on a long walk. Jake wasn’t home to give me the side-eye, but he could have because I was doing it again. I was cramming more togetherness into our last summer days—trying to ensure that I had done enough to really be with them.
I spent that walk trying to accept the fact that there wasn’t anything else I could add—that summer was what it was and that was that. The kids were ahead of me on scooters and bikes which meant I had to walk fast just to keep them in sight. We were together and also we weren’t. I felt that little bit of distance.
And then school came. We dropped those sleepy-eyed kids off with a fresh batch of teachers and left another summer behind us.
It remains up to us to find ways to close the gaps in our distance, hence High, Low, Buffalo, which has never really been a regular dinner table practice. It suddenly felt important to me though; it made me feel like I was gathering them back into my fold.
The stories shared that night were mostly tiny little moments. They had to do with golf and teachers and small school things, and as I listened to the conversations around our table, I reminded myself that it’s never too late to connect. It’s never too late to change course. Sure I missed some opportunities this summer, but the opportunities do not end. Each day gives me a fresh chance to look my kids in the eyes and find out who and how they are.
While dinner was wrapping up, we sensed we were nearing that meltdown chasm, so we moved quickly to get the kids ready for bed. (We’ve done the dance enough times to know you have to stay ahead of things.) The kids put on pajamas and brushed teeth, and then I pulled out a new devotional book I had just bought, full of questions we could talk through as a family.
Jake didn’t side-eye me, but, yes, I was doing it again. I’ll always be doing it—looking for ways to connect and be intentionally together. I didn’t do it perfectly this summer, and I’ll squander plenty more opportunities this fall. But I’ll keep trying. I’ll keep working to ensure that our kids know I am with them, even when I’m not.
Molly Flinkman is a freelance writer from central Iowa where she lives with her husband, Jake, and their four kids. A lover of houseplants and good books, she loves to write about how her faith intersects the very ordinary aspects of her life and hopes her words will encourage and support other women along the way. You can connect with Molly on Instagram, through her monthly newsletter, Twenty Somethings, or on her Substack, Common Stories.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.