Quality Time

I REALLY GET sick of that buzz phrase "quality time.'' And I don't think it is fair to the people who are trying hard to make connections with their offspring. It denotes typecasting of parents and their jobs.Let me explain. Quality time has been described as time spent with your child when you are too rushed with your career to give the child more time, a kind of catch-up game plan.I observed a Q-timer the other day -- a career mother who gets home at 5 and takes her child from school to my neighborhood park every afternoon at the same time.

SARASOTA, Fla. - Just before Wednesday's workout began at the Ed Smith Stadium Complex, Orioles manager Buck Showalter called for 10-year-old Johnny Oates II and his younger brother Jackson to hop the fence and join the team on the field. The siblings quickly sprinted to Showalter, who introduced them to the players circling around, most of them starters. That's when Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts spoke up. “Let's show them what we have in common,” Roberts said with a smile before both he and Johnny lifted their shirts to reveal large vertical scars along the middle of their chests.

So this little girl in nursery school turns to the teacher and cries, "Mrs. Webster! Nathan is eating the endangered animal cookies!"Welcome to the world of "Quality Time," a daily cartoon panel that begins today in The Sun.Penned by Gail Machlis, a San Francisco writer and artist, the panel explores "the world of young professionals, their conflicts and ambitions," according to the Chronicle Features syndicate.But Ms. Machlis says it often explores her own experiences, too."Most of the cartoons are not my personal life, exactly," she says.

Happy post-Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all have plenty to be thankful for and that you arrived at your turkey day destinations safely and sans hangover. A family friend of mine once gave me advice on juggling holiday time with my family and my future in-laws. She said, "Rachel, when you get married, you'll have three families: you, your husband and any children you may have; your family; and your husband's family. The family you create should always come first. The other two will understand.

Generally speaking, most people I know wish they had more of the following three things: money, time and hair. The order of priority, naturally, varies with each person.I have decided my first choice -- after a brief flirtation with the category of hair -- would be: time. Not that I couldn't use more money or more hair. But somehow both these commodities seem attainable. And both seem to have infinite possibilities. Especially the hair thing.Time, on the other hand, is finite. And non-specific, too, since most of us really haven't a clue as to how much of the thing we call time has been allotted to us.Of course, the point has been made -- by philosopher Albert Camus, no less -- that to have money is to have time.

We're trying to convince kids that food does not come out of a box, and we're trying to encourage families to see cooking not as a chore but as quality time that families can spend together."

The sixth edition of "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care" offers parents plenty of long-standing advice and some that is new for the '90s. Haere are some of the new entries in Dr. Spock's venerable book:*Quality time: "The idea of quality time in itself is fine. But I'm concerned that a few conscientious, hard-working parents take it as an obligation - whenever they're at home of for a certain number of hours daily - to be talking, playing, reading with their children, long afteer patience and enjoyment have run out."

Was Reggie Lewis' Choice Unusual?It is always a shock when a good young family man dies abruptly. However, Reggie Lewis selectively ignored advice and a consequence died doing what he compulsively enjoyed. In a perverse and prolonged way, aren't millions of smokers and drinkers doing the same thing every day?Quentin D. DavisAberdeenChild AbuseAccording to an article in The Sun (Aug. 9) about a child custody case in which the names were not revealed, Harford County Circuit Court Judge Cypert Whitfill, "who had convicted a father of child sexual abuse and placed him on probation, agreed to allow the man unsupervised overnight visits with the child."

Baby girl, where you at?" Bobby Brown asks Whitney Houston in Being Bobby Brown, new tonight at 10 on Bravo. He's on his cell phone, standing outside the Hyatt in Atlanta after his release from a monthlong stint behind bars. Now the wife's late for their reunion. Two hours later, Brown's still wandering the Hyatt perimeter, Whitney-less, apparently unaware that she's arrived at the hotel through a private entrance. Ah, women. "Power couple ... she gets to go upstairs, know what I'm saying?

When we think of January, a lot of us think of post-holiday let-down, early winter blahs and influenza. But if we're working mothers, we're likely to have a different slant on this much-maligned month."

If you've only seen Bill Maher on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" or ABC's "Politically Incorrect," you haven't really seen Bill Maher. In concert he is, paradoxically, more relaxed and intense. Freed from the five-minute monologue and the host's chair, he moves with a flexible prowl. He plays with and off his fans, without pandering to them. He fearlessly reacts to whatever is happening in the moment. Three years after he filled the Lyric, Maher brings his stage act to the Hippodrome at 8 p.m. tonight.

J.M. Barrie, creator of "Peter Pan," deserves wider recognition for his other works. Rep Stage is doing its part with the revival of two subtly emotional, World War I-vintage plays, deftly directed by Michael Stebbins. "The New World," from 1915, takes place in a London drawing room. "Rogie" Torrance is to depart soon for the army. His mother wants him to have quality time alone with his father first, but this is a family with major hang-ups about closeness. Bill Largess is telling as the buttoned-up father.

Glen Burnie boys basketball coach Mike Rudd has watched his son, Tyler, grow up in the program, going from being a ball boy as a youngster to becoming the go-to player in the crunch. What do the two think about this being Tyler's last year before moving on to college? They try not to. "I'm just enjoying it, and when he leaves for college I don't know who it will be harder for - probably me," Coach Rudd said. What has also come with Tyler's senior season is a special opportunity at Glen Burnie, which has a talented nucleus intact to make a strong run in the county as well as the state playoffs.

McDonogh girls soccer coach Maurice Boylan knows making difficult decisions on roster cuts are part of the job. Last year, one decision was especially tough. He cut his daughter, Lindsay, then a freshman. When she tried out for the team again in August, Boylan got choked up for a different reason. This time, she made the team. "I brought Lindsay over to talk to her, and ... I just started crying like a baby," said Boylan, in his 18th season. "I'm getting a rush thinking about it right now."

Mark Moran works in Washington and doesn't get home to Howard County until 7:30 p.m. most days. Because of his schedule, he rarely volunteers in the classroom or goes to events at Bellows Spring Elementary School, where his son, Josh, is in third grade. But on Wednesday, Moran worked from home instead of commuting to his office so that he could take part in a program for fathers called Watch D.O.G.S. (Dads of Great Students), a national program making its Maryland debut at Bellows Spring in Ellicott City.

We're trying to convince kids that food does not come out of a box, and we're trying to encourage families to see cooking not as a chore but as quality time that families can spend together."

I TAKE INSULT from your Aug. 15 editorial, ''Childhood in the suburbs.'' Yes, there has been a rise in the two-income family, but this does not justify a decline in the two-parent family.My husband and I and the majority of our friends and business associates take pride in our child rearing. We also take pride in our careers.Our children understand that by both of us working we are able to offer more opportunities to them, such as better education and home environments.My children are in a wonderful after-school program that stimulates them scholastically, as well as allowing them to participate in games and organized sports.

Happy post-Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you all have plenty to be thankful for and that you arrived at your turkey day destinations safely and sans hangover. A family friend of mine once gave me advice on juggling holiday time with my family and my future in-laws. She said, "Rachel, when you get married, you'll have three families: you, your husband and any children you may have; your family; and your husband's family. The family you create should always come first. The other two will understand.

IN A RECENT edition of People magazine, there was a description of a new parenting trend: outsourcing. Busy moms and dads can pay someone to teach their children to ride a two-wheeler, to potty-train their toddlers, to bake cupcakes for a birthday snack at school or sew Scout badges on a uniform. And, on the ABC News Web site, there was a report on the increasing number of parents who attend classes and support groups or hire coaches to make them better parents. Finally, a cover story in New York magazine profiled Isabel Kallman, the "Alpha Mom," an energetic new mother who has plans for a 24-hour cable network of the same name that will provide nothing but expert advice for other new mothers.

Baby girl, where you at?" Bobby Brown asks Whitney Houston in Being Bobby Brown, new tonight at 10 on Bravo. He's on his cell phone, standing outside the Hyatt in Atlanta after his release from a monthlong stint behind bars. Now the wife's late for their reunion. Two hours later, Brown's still wandering the Hyatt perimeter, Whitney-less, apparently unaware that she's arrived at the hotel through a private entrance. Ah, women. "Power couple ... she gets to go upstairs, know what I'm saying?