My 3-year-old is fascinated by watches. So why do I feel so conflicted?

Luke Benedictus

So I was tidying up my kids’ playroom, forlornly trying to return a vague semblance of order to the overturned buckets of Lego and stray pieces of railway track. Picking up a toy fire engine, I noticed a metallic rattle coming from within. When I peered inside, I was thrilled by what I found. It was my Zenith dress watch, a fairly unremarkable 1950s piece, but one that I used to wear a lot. It’d been my wrist-bound equivalent of a favourite old pair of jeans and I loved its unobtrusive nature and easy wearability on a  NATO strap.

I hadn’t worn it for over a year after it mysteriously vanished from my watch box.  I’d searched under beds and in every drawer of the house in vain. Although apparently I’d overlooked  the driver’s compartment of this particular fire engine. Silly me.

The culprit, as usual, was my three-year-old, Marc, who’s already developed a strange horological fascination. I often find him wearing my watches (the fit isn’t great) or attaching them to his toy superheroes or scooter handlebars (also not ideal). His favourite watch at the moment, is the Bamford x Time+Tide GMT1 Limited Edition – less, I suspect, because of his eagerness to track a second-time zone, but because his favourite colour is currently light blue.

I’ve a fair inkling as to why Marc has developed this interest. Once again, it’s all my fault. Over the last couple of years due to COVID, I’ve been working from home a great deal. Given that most of my work involves writing about watches, Marc will often glance over my shoulder while I’m hunched over my laptop and find the screen covered in macro close-ups of Grand Seiko dials or the polished facets of an integrated bracelet. As any parent knows, usually to their eternal chagrin, your kids are always watching and mirroring your behaviour. Just as my two boys love their toy chainsaws from watching me butcher logs for firewood in the garden, Marc has developed a keen interest in watches from observing his dad.

Theoretically, the idea of having a shared passion with your child is, of course, a wonderful thing. Whether it’s cheering on the same football team or spending an afternoon fishing side by side, a common bond draws you closer and hopefully encourages you to hang out as the years tick by. You might imagine that I’d therefore be delighted by Marc’s nascent interest in watches. So why do I feel at best ambivalent and at worst genuinely troubled by it all?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a sucker for the family heirloom idea just as much as the next chump who’s been brainwashed by a certain Patek Philippe ad. So I’m very drawn to the idea of passing on my watches to my boys after I’ve kicked the bucket.

Plus, I do genuinely love watches and their wrist-bound mix of design, craftmanship and technology. I like the emotional connection that builds with a favourite watch as it evolves into a trusty old friend. Most of all, I love the stories behind them. That Zenith dress watch I mentioned at the beginning? It used to belong to this guy – a former general in the Italian army.

I also can’t deny that writing about watches has given me some of the more memorable experiences in my life. They’ve taken me around the world from Bilbao to Shanghai and to great sporting events from the Rio Olympics to the British Lions opener in Auckland. Plus, I also just find something deeply soothing about that steady tick, as sure and dependable as the ocean’s tide.

So why on earth wouldn’t I encourage my son to dive into this world that has yielded me so much joy?

To answer that, I point to a conversation I once had with Walter von Kanel (above), the former chief executive of Longines. At the time, von Kanel – a man with truly stupendous eyebrows – was on the verge of clocking up 50 years at the brand and I asked him how consumers’ attitudes to watches had changed during that time. “It’s simple,” von Kanel said.  “Watches used to be about telling the time. Now they’re purely about status.”

That’s a hard one to swallow. Mainly because, like it or not, it happens to be true. Many men scrutinise each other’s watches just as many women might clock another’s handbag or shoes. It’s a superficial way of sizing someone up.

This gets to the very heart of my unease. Because I don’t particularly want my son to grow up to be materialistic and shallow. I’m not being self-righteous here – fuck, I’d like to upgrade my shit-box of a car, too. No, it’s actually because, believe it or not, I want my son to be happy. And a growing body of research shows that materialism is really bad for your emotional well-being.   It increasingly seems that the path to fulfillment does not come from the rabid pursuit of new and shiny things. Despite the fact that the Dalai Lama happens to wear a Rolex Day Date.

In another thuddingly obvious dad sentiment, not only would I like my son to be happy, I’d also like him to enjoy a sense of security. And developing some degree of financial responsibility is presumably a necessary step in that regard. So, yes, I’d much rather Marc saved up to put down a deposit on his first apartment than spunked all his cash on a meteorite dial Daytona.

The problem, as I said, is that small children mirror your behaviour. And watches play a big part in my life.  Lacking the strength of character to therefore show my son a better example, I suppose I should probably focus on highlighting the more virtuous elements of watches instead.

1. A watch can teach you the value of looking after things – take care of a half-decent watch and it will last longer than you will.
2. Time is precious and you don’t get it back (a good reason to also discourage Marc from spending too much time in prison).
3. Punctuality is a virtue – being constantly late is arrogant because it implies you think your time is more valuable than other people’s.

So that’s it then. For the moment my paternal approach to watches is to accentuate the positives. And start putting my watch box on a higher shelf out of my son’s grasping paws. Sure, if I had the courage of my convictions, I should probably ditch my day-job to show my son a nobler path. Then again, given the fickle nature of a small child’s mind, there’s every chance that Marc’s interest in watches will be subsumed by a Paw Patrol obsession by the end of the week.