When Do Our Children Have Time to Experience Ordinary Life?

I’ve had a thought that won’t leave me alone recently.

It’s not to shame anyone for the choices they make for their children and/or to say this thought is fully correct. It’s just an observation that I can’t stop pondering.

Here’s the thought:

“Have we packed our children’s schedules so full that they don’t have time to experience normal life?”

I have an almost 5-year-old, and the conversations around soccer practice, swimming lessons, school plans, and extracurricular activities leaves my head spinning. It feels like, if I’m not paying attention, I’m just jumping into the rushing stream and letting it carry me without having a second thought or a chat with the Holy Spirit about what He desires for our family. I feel a little flutter rise from my stomach to my throat. It catches, and I catch myself wondering if I’m depriving my sons in some way.

Recently, I texted an old friend to see how she was doing. A trip to stay at a Disney World resort is coming up for them… in Paris.

The thought came with boxing gloves on:

Are my children going to be less cultured?

No. No. No.

I fought this thought with everything in me.

My husband and I talked, and his steadiness steadied me.

We talked about how much it feels like the culture is pushing us to fill up every moment of a child’s life so that they never have to experience the mundanity of normal life.

How to cultivate the land. How to fix something. How to mow the lawn and tend to what has been entrusted to us.

These feel so important, and yet when is there time to do this when life is packed solid with practices, birthday parties, resort stays, and extracurriculars?

What carries a child further in life: knowing how to change the oil and fix a bike, or having experienced Paris? I won’t answer because I’m young and naïve and don’t have adult children, but my gut leans toward the first.

I look at both of my parents. Neither had ever left their North Dakota and Minnesota farms except to travel a town or two away to go out to eat once or twice a year, and let me tell you, they appreciate so much of life. They love adventure and nature but are grounded. My dad can fix anything. My mom can make or tend anything. They’ve fully fixed up houses themselves. We never hired someone to paint, change the oil, or fill in the blank. We never bought bread from the store for the whole 18 years I lived at home.

I was in sports, and not to say they didn’t teach me much, but honestly, I wish I would have spent more time at home learning from my parents. They tried teaching me, but I was always too heavily distracted by my extracurricular activities, and now I’m realizing I missed something that I don’t want my kids to miss.

LIFE SKILLS. ORDINARY LIFE THAT TEACHES YOU SO MUCH!

Everyone says sports have taught them a lot, and I do agree, but ordinary life has so much to teach, too.

I’m 32 and just now realizing life really is not about the next high. Win. Adventure. It’s a whole rewiring I’m trying to learn, and in the process, I want my kids to learn it as well.

Life IS THE ADVENTURE. Learning to change the oil with your dad seems mundane in the moment until, over a lifetime, you save thousands of dollars doing it yourself.

I’m in the process of discerning all of this, and I’m planting these thoughts here to say: if you’re feeling this current rushing past you and everyone is telling you to jump, but you kind of just want to pick the flowers and learn how to make something with them, you’re not alone.

Do I want my kids to jump into the current and tell them to keep up, hold on tight? Or do I want them to enjoy all that the land beneath their feet has to teach them?

A steady life, even when the rush of the current seems like a thrill.