While watching some Mormon Messages on YouTube this morning that talked about how much time could do for family and showed Dad playing with the kids while Mom was cooking dinner or helping the baby it struck me that the imaginative time that bonds the family together in the videos is only possible because the household functions are able to continue as needed without interrupting the play of anyone involved. It also requires that the play not become contentious.
At first I thought that there had to be two parents functioning but I realized that, while that is the ideal, a single parent family can accomplish it as long as the functions continue as needed and the play remains not contentious whether or not there is a parent to monitor/participate in each of those things. It is uncommon for the household functions to continue without a parent monitoring and/or conducting them. Likewise, play can avoid contention without a parent being involved but children need to have cooperative play modeled for them over long periods of time and in various situations before they learn to sustain it alone.
Unless we can meet those two criteria, those nurturing/bonding interactions happen rarely if at all.
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