The Myth of Quality Time

by Frank Bruni in the New York Times
posted Oct 8, 2015

In his New York Times column, Frank Bruni tells us why scheduling snippets of time together for quality bonding with loved ones doesn’t actually lead to the quality we seek, or need.

EVERY summer for many years now, my family has kept to our ritual. All 20 of us — my siblings, my dad, our better halves, my nieces and nephews — find a beach house big enough to fit the whole unruly clan. We journey to it from our different states and time zones. We tensely divvy up the bedrooms, trying to remember who fared poorly or well on the previous trip. And we fling ourselves at one another for seven days and seven nights.

That’s right: a solid week. It’s that part of the ritual that mystifies many of my friends, who endorse family closeness but think that there can be entirely too much of it. Wouldn’t a long weekend suffice? And wouldn’t it ward off a few spats and simplify the planning?

The answer to the second question is yes, but to the first, an emphatic no…

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