The Story of a 10-Minute Walk Twice a Day During Nursery School Drop-offs

Every morning, I walk to nursery school with my child. It's a 10-minute walk one way. That's all the time it is. But lately, those 10 minutes have become my favorite time of day.

It started with the moon.

One morning, my child looked up at the sky and said, "The moon is out." Even though it was morning, the moon was still visible in the sky. If I had been walking alone, I never would have noticed. There are things you can only see because you are walking with a child. Ever since I realized that, the way I see these 10 minutes has changed.

I walk the same path every day. Yet, it never feels like a mere repetition. The reason is simple.The things my child focuses on are different every day.

One day, when we pass in front of a park, they suddenly start running and playing. Another day, they crouch down in front of a flower bed and stare, asking, "What's this?" On days when I carry them, they sing songs they just learned at nursery school. On the way home from pickup, they tell me in a small voice, bit by bit, who they played with and what they did today.

Even though it should be the same scenery every day, it is new every day. My child makes it that way.

The time spent on drop-offs and pickups is also a time to read my child's condition. If they are fussy or not feeling well in the morning, I rethink my priorities and decide to pick them up earlier today. Conversely, when they run off happily toward the nursery school, I feel determined to work hard today. My child's demeanor tells me how to navigate the day.

I use the 10 minutes walking back alone as time to listen to books using the Kindle text-to-speech feature.So, the roles of the time are clearly divided between the trip there and the trip back. I don't feel like I'm wasting time walking alone. I've designed it that way.

Let me do a little math here.

If I continue the 20-minute round-trip drop-off and pickup for 240 days a year, that's 80 hours. Over the five years of attending nursery school, that adds up to 400 hours. That's a significant amount.

The problem is that if you walk without thinking, these 400 hours just become travel time. That is precisely why I try to think a little every morning. Let's talk about this today. Let's try asking this question today. Just by being conscious of that, the content of those 10 minutes changes.

I don't believe that a relationship of trust with a child is built through special events. The accumulation of 10 minutes every day becomes 400 hours. I feel that there is something important within that accumulation.

When I trace back my own memories from when I was small, I didn't go to nursery school. I went to kindergarten by bus, and I have no memory of walking side-by-side with my parents. That is exactly why this time feels so special. I have the feeling that I am creating the time that I never received myself.

If, when my child grows up, they remember, "We walked together every day," then I think those 10 minutes every morning are a treasure.

Every morning, I walk side-by-side with my child. I feel like I will be taught something today, too.

These two 10-minute walks are also one of the few "forced offline times" for me as a solo business owner. Because I work in a way where I have to design my own breaks, I am helped by these 20 minutes of round-trip time.