We Always Weekender #27: All Other Ground is Sinking Sand

This weekend’s round-up revolves around the shifting sands of childhood and family life, from over-scheduled childhoods to the benefits of swim team to the millennial and zoomer struggle for the American Dream (with a few fun home design pieces, of course). What activities we should commit to as a family is something I think about quite often. I worry about doing too much or too little, letting their activities dictate our days on the one hand or depriving them of critical childhood memories and milestones on the other. I wonder what we are missing out on communally when children’s activities are the primary driver of family time—or if they aren’t—and about the fleeting, unstructured time given only in childhood that they might be missing, as well.

But despite this, I continue to come to the same conclusion about how grounding kids in faith-filled traditions and liturgical living, grafting them into a rich inheritance and Christian heritage that has endured for generations upon generations is at least one of the antidotes to what can be a frantic, over-scheduled modern family life.

Further, as children grow and young adults struggle to piece together some semblance of a grown up life, I’m increasingly convinced of how generational faithfulness in all its forms — the physical, emotional, spiritual, material continuity of a family over time, is the salve required to soothe the struggle in a time of severe economic, geopolitical, moral and cultural tumult.

Happy reading and, as always, feel free to sound off in the comments!

If you live and put into practice Christ’s doctrine in your home, you will find that you hardly ever need to say anything to make that home really come to life. Live like people who have come back to life. - Rev. Jesus Urteaga

Present…but not really — “The quantity of time can deceive us into believing we’re offering something that only the quality of our attention can provide. There are countless ways to disappear without ever leaving the room.” A real kick in the pants from Heather @ To Sow a Seed!

In that same vein, We’re quietly teaching our kids that everything is more important than them by Courtney McGee.

When Do Our Children Have Time to Experience Ordinary Life by stems from home asks great questions about activities and experiencing vs. learning critical life skills.

So many of our friends do swim team and while we haven’t jumped on the bandwagon quite yet, this piece from Emily Thomas makes a convincing case.

Beauty and Creation: Reflecting God in the Sacred Home by Ashley Tumlin Wallace — lovely and inspiring, as always, from Ashley.

Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise by Johann Kurtz — a sobering look at where millennials and Gen Z sits (languishes?) economically, and an argument for the value of social capital and generational continuity.

As a former PR director for a large faith-based organization, I know from experience that almost any secular publication/reporter wanting to write the faith angle on a Christian individual or company/org is about to drag said faith through the mud with a level of haughty sarcasm only “elite” secular mainstream journos can muster. This article from AD on Christian interior designers really feels no different…you can almost hear the reporter laughing as you read. Still, the conversation around how Christian homes should look or be designed differently than secular ones is very interesting to me (I even wrote about it a few years back for Christianity Today) More on this soon.

How Do You Redecorate a House That’s Been in Your Family for Five Generations from Town & Country — a multi-generational socialite family home in Midcoast Maine? Say less.

Finally, today’s quote comes from Rev. Jesus Urteaga’s booklet Bright and Cheerful Homes which can be found on Scepter publishing. It is excellent and free to read here.