Now, just what is this “quality time” we hear about? Busy parents may spend 15 or 20 minutes every other day with their child, maybe an hour on the weekend, and call it quality time. Is this adequate for the child’s need? Or is its purpose to salve a parental conscience? Or to ease the mind of a mother who works for self-​fulfillment while leaving her child unfulfilled? But you say, ‘Honestly, I’m so busy I just don’t have that kind of time.’ That is too bad and very sad for both you and your child because there are no shortcuts. Find the time during the formative years, or be prepared to reap a generation gap in the teen years.

It is not only the possible damage done to the child left in day care, but also the parents’ loss when they miss out on enjoying the child as he grows up. The child does not always understand the whys and wherefores for being left alone; he may feel neglected, rejected, abandoned, unloved. By his teen years, he may have formed attachments with peers to replace the parents too busy for him. The child may even start living a double life, one to placate his parents and another to please himself. Words, explanations, apologies​—none of this closes the gap. Parental talk about love now does not come through as genuine to the child that was neglected during the years when he needed his parents the most. Talk of love now sounds false; the words ring hollow. Like faith, professed love without works is dead.​—James 2:26.

It takes time to love a child. Years ago Robert Keeshan, broadcaster to children as Captain Kangaroo, warned of the consequences of withholding your time from your children. He said:

“A small child waits, thumb in mouth, doll in hand, with some impatience, the arrival home of a parent. She wishes to relate some small sandbox experience. She is excited to share the thrill she has known that day. The time comes, the parent arrives. Beaten down by the stresses of the workplace the parent so often says to the child, ‘Not now, honey. I’m busy, go watch television.’ The most often spoken words in many American households, ‘I’m busy, go watch television.’ If not now, when? ‘Later.’ But later rarely comes . . .

“Years go by and the child grows. We give her toys and clothes. We give her designer clothes and a stereo but we do not give her what she wants most, our time. She’s fourteen, her eyes are glassy, she’s into something. ‘Honey, what’s happening? Talk to me, talk to me.’ Too late. Too late. Love has passed us by. . . .

“When we say to a child, ‘Not now, later.’ When we say, ‘Go watch TV.’ When we say, ‘Don’t ask so many questions.’ When we fail to give our young people the one thing they require of us, our time. When we fail to love a child. We are not uncaring. We are simply too busy to love a child.”