Is Your Family Too Busy?
My personal story of realizing mine was and how we took steps to change that
Greetings Glory Carriers!
How has your week been? My week has been pretty straightforward with school, ministry and work routines shaping our days. But if I am being transparent, there is one challenge that I’ve been navigating as a parent for a while now and it is this: managing busyness levels of my family.
Does that statement strike a chord with you at all?
I’d like to take this newsletter to share some of my thoughts on this area with the hopes of beginning a conversation that I believe is important for all of us to have, no matter the ages or stages of our kids.
The Garden of Marriage series will continue, but I will space it out to one post per month. So if you were looking forward to the next one, it will be the week of March 10! Today, this topic of busyness is burning in my heart. And it begins with the following question:
How Do You Know If You Are Too Busy?
How do you know if your family is too busy? This may be a question that intrigues you, bothers you, or maybe you haven’t thought much about it before. But for me, this is a question gripping my own heart as I navigate weekly, even daily decisions coming into my family. Just in the last week I considered the following ones:
Choosing with my children which and how many ‘after school clubs’ (up to five on different days) they would join (which puts them home on the late bus at 5 pm with no down time after school).
Deciding whether to succumb to pressures from a soccer coach to join a tournament across the city on a Sunday, after a full morning of church participation.
Deciding whether to say yes to two different Birthday parties for two different-aged kids in two different parts of the city that would mean our family going in all different directions on the one day we have to spend together.
My kids are eight, six, four and two. And sometimes, it just feels like too much. Okay, maybe it is partly due to the fact that I have four kids! But I do find myself wondering things like: What happened to the days when kids could just be kids? When unstructured and unscheduled play ruled the day?
Do you ever feel like that?
Busyness is a Cultural Phenomenon
In this current cultural moment, there is no question that busyness has become the norm. It has become the accepted and even expected way to live. It is not uncommon when asking how someone is doing to hear some form of the responses,
“I am good…just busy!”
“I’m so busy…you?”
“I’m terribly busy… running around to this and that.”
It is not uncommon to hear of parents cramming every hour of their children’s days with activity—the more stimulating, educational, or fun the better, right? It is rooted in understandable concerns about our children’s futures—don’t we all want to give our kids every possible opportunity and advantage in this achievement-oriented world? Or the opportunities perhaps we never had?
But deep down, for me anyway, I wonder: At what cost? Katherine Johnson Martinko put it so well when she said,
“…ironically, the harder we strive to give kids what we think they need (more practices and games! more rehearsals! more tutoring! more fun!), the less we’re giving kids what they actually need—more unstructured play time, more solitude, more sleep, more in-person time with family and close friends, more leisurely afternoons to read a book or hang out on park swings… The loss of this unsupervised play-based childhood is part of the reason why the mental health of adolescents has declined so steeply in recent decades.”
Yikes. There is a cost we often don’t consider as we bounce from one activity to the next. This affirms what I have been sensing, that something feels ‘off’ in the hustle and bustle of raising our kids.
And then I wonder,
Does it have to be this way?
Do I have to give in to the ‘busy’ life?
Do I have to fill every hour of my kids’ days, seven days a week, with constant activity?
Do I have to give into the demands of the day that tell us ‘more is better’ for our kids?
As I have wrestled through these questions this past year, I have come to a realization for myself and family:
No. I don’t have to do anything.
I’ve realized that I have a choice when it comes to how busy my family will be. And I’d like to share just one I’ve made this past year that helped us reset our busyness levels and bring some margin back into our lives.
An Experiment That Changed Everything for My Family This Year
To give some context to this decision, my two eldest daughters, ages eight and six, take a 45-minute bus to and from school every day, which means they (and we) are up at the crack of dawn and at their school for a full day of learning, play and activities from Monday to Friday. On top of that, Saturdays were often filled with sports practices, play dates, birthdays and other parties. And Sundays, as a ministry family, we are up early and out the door to spend the morning with our church family for worship, spiritual formation classes, choir practice and fellowship. Needless to say, we did not have a day where we did not have to be ‘up and going’ and rushing out the door somewhere.
And this began to eat away at me. I remembered my own childhood, during my elementary years at least (grades 1-5), having more time at home to play, explore and just ‘be’ without anywhere to be. I wanted that for my kids too.
I couldn’t shake the strong sense - in the ‘gut feeling’ kind of way - that my kids needed a day of unscheduled activities. But how? It seemed impossible to resist the tidal wave of activity coming at us every week.
Now don’t get me wrong. I am grateful we even have such opportunities for activities. I am very much aware that what I am writing today is in the category of a ‘luxury problem.’ And because of that some may say I shouldn’t even raise such a topic. But I still maintain that busyness is an issue we need to address because of the potential and power it has to affect the mental, physical and spiritual health of our families - for better or for worse.
So one day, in the midst of feeling stuck in the cycle of an over-scheduled life that was taking its toll on us all, I got the idea to try an experiment. My husband and I gave ourselves permission to not schedule activities for our kids on Saturdays. For the whole school year.
And you know what? We are halfway through and it has turned out to be one of the best decisions we ever made. At least for this stage our family is in. I know things will change as they grow and we will need to re-evaluate our busyness level every year. For this is the call of every parent - to adapt and change to the needs as our children grow. But this was the right call for our family, for now.
Fiercely Protecting What My Family Needed Most
At the heart of it all, what I felt like my family needed most every week amidst the general and built in hustle and bustle of getting to school each day across the massive Southeast Asian city in which we live, was a day of scheduled downtime and of un-scheduled play.
This meant that our decision to refrain from over-planning on Saturdays was rooted in our desire to fiercely protect three things that we felt were most important to our family right now:
Family togetherness (they are away at school all week, so the weekend is time to bond and reconnect)
Time to rest and recharge (6 days of the week we are up at 6am and out the door, so having one day we can slow down is something I felt we all needed)
Time and space for free play (kids develop best when they are playing, which seems to me like a rare commodity these days!)
How about you? What are you being called to fiercely protect for the sake of your family’s health and vitality in this season?
Take a moment to think about it. Pray and ask God to show you. And tap into your inner compass guided by the Holy Spirit who will faithfully give you insight as the parent who knows best what their children need in each stage.
It may look different for each family and that’s ok. But when we are guided by these root priorities, they can help us keep the most important things the most important things amidst pressures to conform to certain patterns of the world.
Here is What a Saturday Looks Like for Us Now
We wake up excited to be nowhere.
We lounge in our pajamas.
We (the parents) sip coffee.
We FaceTime family.
The kids eat waffles (with Nutella).
They get bored (my favorite part) just long enough for the creativity to kick in.
They play. Endlessly.
They laugh.
They fight.
I bark at them to stop (only a little).
They laugh again.
I marvel. At how sweet and simple life can be when we resist over-scheduling our lives because we think we have to.
And we relish in the deep and restorative rest that comes from having nowhere to be and being together in it. As Martinko says,
“Empty hours are a gift. They relieve parents of the constant hustle of going places and doing things, while giving children space for the free play and independent activity that they need. Unscheduled time gives kids a chance to venture outside, find playmates, and concoct elaborate imaginary games that form the basis of the most beneficial sort of play…”
Some parents I talk to have given up on trying to create or re-create this kind of childhood that sounds good, but just seems too unreasonable in a world of endless possible activities, play-dates, games, gadgets and screens. That’s fine.
But for me, I hold out hope, and am seeing with my own eyes each week what magic can happen when we allow some wind to come back into the sails of our lives. We begin to drift into new directions and somehow the world begins to feel right again when I see my kids freely playing.
It doesn’t mean we have every Saturday completely free of activity. We do see friends, have families over, and go to the occasional Birthday party or celebration of a dear friend. But we took back control by letting some margin back into our lives. And I am so glad we did.
Since then we have made some other decisions to create margin in our weekly rhythms, especially around after school and evening routines and Sunday afternoons, reserved for rest, school work and preparing for the week ahead. These small decisions have born the fruit of rested and (mostly) joyful kids who have just enough activity, but not too much. And that makes my mom heart happy.
The Flip Side of Making Counter-Cultural Choices
I don’t want to paint the picture that decisions like these are always easy or free of difficulty. At times there are the normal doubts and fears that creep in:
Are my kids ‘missing out’ from an opportunity to better themselves?
Will they somehow ‘fall behind’ from not participating at the level of intensity other kids are?
These kinds of questions creep in occasionally. But for me, I go back to the ages my kids are -from two to eight - and remind myself that the greatest joy I have as a parent is seeing them play - truly play - not perform at this age. And the more they are given space to play, the better they get at it.
I know the competitive seasons - and the intensity that comes with them - will come. And I look forward to that. But for me and my home, I want my kids to be kids. And in this hyper-active culture in which we are living, it seems to me like something that requires fighting for.
It may not look exactly the same for you, but maybe deep down you wonder if there is some way to create more margin for your family, more un-scheduled time, more space to play, create, laugh and just…be. And yet, you don’t know where to start. Or if changing anything is even possible. I hear you and have been there. Next week, I’ll be sharing some simple and practical guidelines to help you take a step towards managing the busyness levels in your family.
But for now, know this:
You Do Have a Choice
I’m realizing more and more I have a choice in how busy I will allow my family to be. And I will continue to tap into those ‘gut feelings' and seek to honor them because usually it is the Holy Spirit whispering something, ever bringing us into holiness and truth. A word? A way? A warning?
Pay attention, you will hear it too. And you must decide if you will heed it. Or ignore it and potentially pay the price in whatever form it may come - exhaustion, weariness, diminished mental health or missing out on precious quality time for your family in whatever stage you are in.
For Reflection
When people ask you how you are doing, do you ever respond with how busy you are? Do you observe others around you doing this? What are your thoughts about it?
How can you tell if your family is too busy? What are the signs? Are you paying attention to them or ignoring them?
What is the price you pay for being too busy? Is it worth it?
What are the most important things you want to protect in your family in this season? What decisions might be required to ensure that happens?
What is one ‘experiment’ you can try, to adjust your family’s busyness level in whatever way you feel is needed?
Refuse to Get Caught in the Cultural Narrative
It’s so easy to get caught up in the cultural narrative1 that ‘more is always better’ for our kids. We can often feel like we fail as parents if we don’t eliminate boredom and maximize their opportunities toward the best possible future for them that we envision. But if they are burned out before they even start, isn’t something wrong with this picture?
Busyness does not have to rule the day. It does not have to be our way of life. You and I, mom and dad, we have a choice. And I pray we will make the best and wisest one for our families, by His grace and for His glory.
It may look different for each family. I believe we must refrain from making a ‘one-size-fits-all’ prescription for every family as there are many variables and complexities that play into what makes a family function and grow in God’s ways. We should refrain from comparing or judging what others are or are not doing.
The important thing is that we are all honoring what we believe is ultimately best for our own kids, the ones we’ve been given to steer and steward in His ways, rather than being swallowed up by the way of the day, or by what the person next to us is doing. For when we do, the light of Christ in our Homes of Glory will shine ever brighter in a world that desperately needs it.
Friends, it’s time to get un-busy, one choice at a time. Let’s do it together!
For His Glory from My Heart and Home to Yours,
Ali
Fun Family Photos of the Week
Quote of the Week
“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.”
― G.K. Chesterton
Book of the Week
This is a startling book that will make you sad, alarmed and enraged all at the same time. It pulls back the veil on some key factors that have led to the decline of a ‘play-based’ childhood in exchange for a ‘phone-based’ one, which has had detrimental effects on the mental health of this current generation of children growing up. It is a heavy read, but a must-read in my opinion, and insightful and worthy one!
Movie of the Week
In today’s world of structure and stranger danger, this documentary makes the case that free play and independence have virtually disappeared from childhood, giving way to unprecedented anxiety and depression in youth and adolescents. In CHASING CHILDHOOD, psychologists, activists, and leaders of the "free play" movement fight to bring back the untold benefits of a less curated childhood. You can learn more and gain access to the film here. It is worth the watch, I think.
I’ll be addressing how the cultural narrative compares to the biblical narrative in a future post - stay tuned!
Great post, Ali. I'm glad more Christian families are asking these kinds of questions. I read the Anxious Generation last year and it was hugely helpful. More importantly, I'm interested in thinking about how busy the Lord actually wants my family to be. I appreciate how you framed it - we are not victims. We can choose, as parents, to slow our families down. And often that's probably what we should do.
Keep it up!
I agree. :) My kids are eight, nine, and eleven and they are in very few extra activities as their school days are long. We also take Saturdays as a day to rest as a family, which means that while we might see friends or go to birthday parties on occasion, we also have Saturdays where we have a leisurely breakfast, go out for a walk, play games, and watch a film as a family. I think nowadays we're led to believe that having days like this is impractical at best, lazy and selfish at worst. But what if it's in the freedom of having nothing scheduled that we grow closer to God and to each other?