For the vacations, Radio Atlantic is sharing the primary episode of the Atlantic podcast Learn how to Hold Time. Co-hosts Becca Rashid and Ian Bogost, an Atlantic contributing author, study our relationship with time and what we are able to do to reclaim it.
In its first episode, they discover the concept of “losing” time. However first, Radio Atlantic host Hanna Rosin has a query: Is instructing scheduling to a baby a foul concept?
The next is a transcript of the episode:
Hanna Rosin: Becca.
Becca Rashid: Sure, Hanna.
Rosin: I’ve a narrative I wish to inform you, and I don’t know if it’s wonderful or horrible.
Rashid: I’m positive it will likely be wonderful, Hanna. Let’s hear it.
Rosin: Okay. So, this weekend, I used to be hanging out with a 5-year-old. Truly, 4 and three-quarters, as a result of you understand how little youngsters are extraordinarily exact about their age.
And we had been planning out all of the issues that we had been going to do this day. And what I did was, I sat down with this child, and I made a schedule.
Rashid: For the kid who’s 4 and three-quarters?
Rosin: It was, like, a pictorial schedule. And I assumed I used to be doing one thing extremely enjoyable. I used to be like, No. 1: We’re going to go to the fortress playground. No. 2: We’re going to have a meals journey. No. 3: We’re going to have a throwing journey. And I taught the child write the whole lot down and say how lengthy it was going to take. After which I taught the child cross issues out.
Rashid: Oh my God. You had been coaching this youngster on make a to-do record.
Rosin: Sure. Okay. And solely on the finish of it did I believe: Oh my God, I’ve to ask Becca if I simply did a horrible factor.
Rashid: Did the child get pleasure from it? Did he respect your efforts in mapping out his day for him like that?
Rosin: Nicely, I believe the child was a pure bundle of chaos. I used to be attempting to type of manage and rein it in and be like, Look, we’re going to do that for 20 minutes, and this for 20 minutes, and this for 20 minutes.
Rashid: To handle the in any other case chaotic lifetime of a 5-year-old youngster?
Rosin: Precisely. As a substitute of letting them type of stumble from one factor to the subsequent factor, I used to be attempting to arrange time. Was {that a} mistake?
Rashid: I imply, I can perceive why that was a pure compulsion for you. You’ve been educated to suppose that means. I don’t know if a baby who’s 4 and three-quarters must situation himself to suppose that means.
And I ponder if it possibly stifles his potential to truly work out, like: How am I feeling? What do I wish to do subsequent? Possibly to not conceptualize his day as a “day” fairly but, you recognize?
Rosin: That’s what I assumed your reply was gonna be.
Rashid: (Laughs.)
Rosin: That is Radio Atlantic. I’m Hanna Rosin, and that was Becca Rashid, one of many co-hosts of The Atlantic’s How To podcast. Their new season is named Learn how to Hold Time, and there’s an idea in that season referred to as “motion dependancy.” And all I can say is: I really feel seen. Anyway, we at Radio Atlantic are off for the vacations—completely satisfied holidays, everybody—we’re going to play Episode 1 of Learn how to Hold Time. Get pleasure from.
You may hearken to the episode and browse the transcript right here:
