If you are like me, you hate to be trapped in a sea of voice mail automation when you want to talk to a person live to address an issue. Before the days of caller ID, do you remember what it felt like to call a number and get a busy signal? This pulsating tone would fill your ears and it always seemed like it was an insult or a form of rejection. You felt rejected because someone was not waiting by the phone for your call. In fact, in the early days some businesses realized that busy signals drove customers away, so what they would do was continually remind the callers that they were on “hold” and they would be enthusiastically answered in a moment or two. Some have even switched over to bland melodies by Muzak. But no matter how you look at it, there is somebody on the other line who is too busy to talk to you.

This is the same with many children in the homes of absentee fathers. The children frequently hear busy signals. In fact, many of the busy signals come in the form of “Don’t bother me” or “I’m tied up.” For many men, leisure appointments, deadlines, money, and other objects of adult interests seem to be more important than any of the child’s interest. So often the fathers will reason that a child has plenty of time, he can always wait awhile, and he puts them on hold and gives them the old busy signal. They settle that the child will understand. This is why when a child keeps hearing too many busy signals they will “dial” another number. Like a business that plugs into the Muzak system, there are too many fathers who succumb to buying off their kids with money, things, and organized activities. What is profound is that in a city like New York, many fathers give their kids money instead of time because they have more money than time. By this very act, the father warps both his sense of practical values and family values. It takes a dedicated parent to cancel golf, cocktail parties and trips to the city to spend time in ordinary talk with their children.