I believe one of the great fallacies of contemporary life is the ever present conviction that quality time is a substitute for quantity time. We are all so busy bustling hither and yon that we have convinced ourselves that we can allocate shorter periods and still experience equal profundity.

Some of this is understandable and some of it is just plain foolish.

The sad restrictions placed on divorced parents who have only part-time custody of children would be a good example of this tension of time. But I think we are only fooling ourselves if we think that such a situation is just as good as being with our kids day in and day out.

Although transforming moments can come out of the blue, most often they come out of the gray...out of the ordinariness of our lives, out of routine, out of the rituals that fill our days.

I am, for instance, all in favor of couples taking time out from their careers to nurture their relationship with special events and evenings out but if our expectation is that such isolated incidents will make up for the daily development that is fundamental for healthy relationships we will be sadly disappointed.

As we age, many of us sadly realize that our so-called quality moments as parents or partners were limited by the quantity of time we were willing to give to our children or spouse.