I love the blog Segullah. I may have mentioned it before. Segullah is a literary journal published and written by female Latter-Day Saints and the blog is a spin-off of the journal. It's generally very well written, and it is usually doctrinally right on target. I read it fairly regularly.
Back in September, there was a post called Afternoons of Nothing, which I still remember because it deals with an issue I've thought a lot about--extracurricular activities for our kids; what is necessary (if anything!); how to choose them; how much is too much. The author has six kids and at that time, she had just pulled them all out of every single extracurricular activity. (Not that she advocates that, necessarily. You kind of have to read the article.)
Shortly after her post, Elder Uchtdorf gave a beautiful talk (October conference) entitled "Of Things That Matter Most". I thought of that blog post and smiled--sounds like that mother was right on track.
She just posted again--a follow up to that post. It really intrigues me and I think it's something to think long and hard about. I don't feel harried or rushed (usually) right now, but I only have 2 kids who are 'in' anything. I appreciated the viewpoint of a mother of six, further down the road. It's one of those issues which we would all probably do well to contemplate early on in our career (yes, it's a career!) of Motherhood.
Read these, if you like. What are your thoughts on this topic?
5 comments:
My good friend Jennie (who is also my visiting teacher) wrote this post! She's great. We have talked about this quite a bit before.
The last couple of years have been go, go, go for me. Last year I was the PTA president. Ummm, not sure how many hundreds of hours I spent on that. And between any school activity, PTA meetings, soccer, scouts, and me having to be at mutual - pretty much every night I would fly in the door at 7:00 and then frantically throw together spaghetti, grilled cheese, or taco soup and then get the kids in bed by nine. Everyone was always tired and I hit the end of this last year thinking wait a minute! I spend all this time on everyone else, what about my family?
My problem seemed to be solved when I decided to home school my kids. (yeah, sort of a dramatic solution,eh? ha! That was not the only reason we decided to homeschool.) Things have slowed down so much that we now actually have the time and interest to do a sport for each kid. We are looking to add in piano next year, but will choose a teacher through the homeschooling network here who can come to our home during the daytime hours.
The difference our change in schedule makes is tangible. Jake even dropped Scouts. He's not really a fan of his leader, and not super close to any of the boys his age, so we do it all at home as part of his curriculum and show up to pack meetings for awards. Ahhh..... I keep having to remind myself also when we occasionally decide to skip ward activities and even Mutual for me sometimes, that these programs are here to support our families. If they arrive on a night that is really stressful, or too many other nights have been busy that week, it IS okay to skip them! I even had scheduled the missionaries to come eat dinner at our house one night - it had been one of THOSE days. I was almost in tears,two out of three kids were in time out....ding, dong. I handed the sisters some cash and sent them on their way. And surprise! They were totally understanding and cool about it.
I think it is so easy to feel pressure without even realizing it, and lose sight of our family's needs. So good luck with it as you approach that time in life!
First of all, let me tell you that I LOVE the fact that you are regularly blogging again - no pressure, though.
And second, this is a great topic of discussion. After an extremely busy fall, none of my kids is in anything right now (unless you include the weekly piano lesson that I give two of them) and our relationships are seeing the effects. Less contention in the home overall, better dinners, no mad rush to finish scripture study each night - these all contribute to a better home environment. I'm also not saying it's wise to eliminate everything, but there's something to be said for not being pulled in a dozen different directions at the expense of "family time".
Oh, and I like Cheri's comment about how homeschooling allows for many of these specialized lessons because you can fit it in during the school day. A very strong argument for homeschooling - one that I have contemplated a lot.
(Continued) :)
Weston was called as the ward mission leader about six months ago and the general feeling that people have here is that they admire those in our ward but they feel very disconnected from each other. There are a lot of feelings of loneliness. People here don't get together. We have a very friendly ward but most don't feel they have any friends. People they feel comfortable turning to in times of need.
I think of the scripture Christ teaches us in John "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man may lay down his life for his friends."
I truly believe that Satan is using all the good in the world against us. We all get so caught up in "who we are" that we forget how the Savior loved. He loved others more than himself. He supported, loved and healed those around him because he was there.
We may not be asking to literally die for a friend but I believe there are other ways we can "lay down our lives for a friend." We can be there. Julie Beck's statement that "Mothers who know, do less." rings through my mind almost on a daily basis.
I am not advocating bagging all enriching activities. I just think we need to be careful how much time those activities distract us from what is most important in life. The people in our lives. Our RS President recently spoke in sacrament and I loved a thought she shared..."many think that the gospel is about families but its not. It's about doing what we are supposed to do."
I feel like I am rambling and please forgive me if I have have broken every literary rule in the book ;) and this feels disjointed. I have only been interupted about 10 times while I have been typing this! Off to love on a little boy who woke up sad.
Emily :)
I like Segullah too, and I liked these articles. I've always said I want my kids to do one sport and one instrument. But doing basketball and piano is already getting crazy and the boys are still little. I can definitely see this being a huge issue in the future and I hope I'll remember to get my priorities in order!
Very enjoyable discussion, including the great comments! I am like the original author with "too many" kids that make it almost impossible to do a lot of extracurriculars. Not only is time a constraint, but money. The little lessons here & there add up. Makes me miss all the free stuff we got from the Ann Arbor department scholarships (Rec & Ed, and Parks & Rec). Still, I am so grateful for the down times when my kids get "bored" and end up making sweet memories playing outside with each other and friends. There is no substitute for spending time outside doing unstructured activities. That's what I treasure from my childhood, and what is primarily missing in the over-scheduled life (adult & child). That being said, I encourage my kids to take advantage of the (free or mostly free) clubs offered by the schools, and we like them to have some way to learn to read music. That can come from piano lessons, band at school, etc.
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