Our 2012 Christmas letter provided friends and family with an obligatory update, one paragraph for each member of our family. Allow me to share my portion of the letter:

Marian: Has not been promoted. You might say I’ve actually given up. {George Costanza sweatpants episode anyone?} After four years of graduate school, five-and-a-half years of teaching college students, and five years of schooling my own kids at home, I now do none of the above, a status of which I’m quite proud. I used to refer to myself as a “recovering academic.” Now I refer to myself as a “recovering homeschool mom.”

The reality is: I’m simply recovering from doing more than I could reasonably handle and still maintain sanity. The kids have been in public school for a year now and it has been a blessing, exactly what all of us needed. Slowly I am finding rest and renewal and I don’t plan on adding new endeavors anytime soon. Though my roles as wife, mom, and fledgling manager of our home are plenty, I do enjoy a bit more time to pursue my love of writing, books, solitude, and compulsive furniture rearranging.

In short, I’ve professionalized underachievement and I’d like to share the wealth. There is method to this life of margin, rejecting prodigy-status for your kids, and playing wiffle ball in the backyard.

Keep in mind, this isn’t a how-to blog. Not really. I don’t like to be preachy or offer formulas. But I do want to challenge how we think and feel about certain issues. Actions and patterns don’t stand alone; they’re fueled by what’s going on internally.

So I’d like to end this series by offering up simple questions. These are the very questions I ask myself or that my husband asks me when we’re trying to decide where to stake down our yeses and our nos.

Here we go.

Am I saying yes out of guilt?

Could my time and energy be better spent elsewhere?

Am I being passively peer-pressured by my overcommitted culture?

Am I saying yes because I’m afraid of what people will think if I say no?

If I say yes to this, what will I say no to?

Example: If I say yes to soccer as an activity for Kid A, there’s a good chance I’m saying no to preparing dinner on the nights of games or practices, eating around the table together, and Kid A having open-ended play on those days. Play that might take the form of a fort in your dining room.

I’m not anti-sports and activities. Our kids play sports. We just don’t want their stuff overtaking the life of our family and the freedom of their childhood.

If I say no to this, what will I say yes to?

Example: If I say no to working part-time or full-time once the kids are in school, I am probably saying yes to cleaning my own house, scrutinizing the grocery-store flyers, and making the budget stretch in every possible way.

If I say yes, how will this affect my mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health?

Too much stress makes us sick. Too little margin squeezes out relationship. Too much doing crowds out space for just being. What are the implications here? Perhaps they’re more significant than you think.

How am I wired? Am I taking my God-given uniqueness into consideration?

Example: If I’m an introvert and I say yes to an opportunity that involves a lot of engagement with people, whether it’s ministry, homeschooling, being involved in kids’ school, etc., I need to know that I’m going to be drained. I’ll have less to offer those who matter most.

Have I prayed about it and taken the time to listen in stillness?

The first time I did this, it was awkward. And I naturally love quiet. Our culture is not one to slow and still and appreciate the sacredness of open-ended space. Quiet listening doesn’t always yield a definitive answer but perhaps it cultivates a spirit that can more easily hear and discern.

Have I listened to wise counsel?

Your spouse? A trusted friend, counselor, or pastor? Those who know you and will be honest with you.

These are some questions to ask concerning our kids:

Can they handle what’s already on their plate?

Do they really want to do this or do I want them to do this?

Have they demonstrated the responsibility to say yes to this?

My husband recently challenged me with some good thoughts here. When considering a great opportunity for our 7th grader, he reminded me:

She is only 12 years old. This is unnecessary. Opportunities like this are a privilege, not something she’s entitled to. 

Basically, we earn the right to be busy with the things we want to be busy with. Generally speaking, 12-year-olds haven’t been on the earth long enough to earn the responsibility to be as busy as we’re often allowing them to be. I’d never thought of it this way. Most of us don’t. What if we thought of opportunities as privileges for our children instead of must-haves?

Are they getting enough sleep?

Here’s what The National Sleep Foundation reports:

Teens need about 9 1/4 hours of sleep each night to function best (for some, 8 1/2 hours is enough). Most teens do not get enough sleep — one study found that only 15% reported sleeping 8 1/2 hours on school nights.

Want to know the very first sentence under the NSF’s category, “Teens and Sleep?”

Sleep is food for the brain. 

That’s some simple truth right there.

Babies and teenagers need more sleep than any other segment of the population. {But do not ever tell a sleep-deprived, brand new mother this statistic. She will punch you in the face.} How many of us are robbing our kids of sleep and health because we’re allowing them to be too busy?

Am I comparing my child’s commitments {or lack thereof} to other kids’ commitments?

Comparison is such a liar because it usually means we’re comparing our worst or mediocre to someone else’s best or better.

God picked you for your child. Don’t compare. Don’t cave because you see all of his friends equally overcommitted. Busy-ness is not a badge of honor but it is sometimes a badge of crazy. Stick to your guns. Know his or her limitations. Know your limitations.

My oldest is only in the 7th grade but I told her a couple of weeks ago that if I hear “but everyone else” one more time, my head would explode and it would be her fault. {I have no business writing anything about decent parenting.}

What’s my point? God gives you wisdom for your child. Go with it.

Am I saying yes just to make him / her happy?

I was talking with my mom about all of this stuff and she told me her own angst as a mother on this very issue, how it was easy to feel like a failure when a parental decision resulted in her child’s misery. How she knew that she could make everything right with the world by reversing a decision or giving in. In the short-term, that would have brought surface-level harmony, but not exactly abiding peace. Instead, we all weathered the storm. Perseverance usually gives way to perspective.

Her teenage self may rail against you today. Love her anyway. Try not to take it personally. Know that it’s not your job to make her happy each and every day of her life under your roof. {And now please copy this paragraph down and e-mail it to me because I need reminding more than anyone.}

What do you want the memories to be?

I kind of hate this question. Probably because I’ve already messed up plenty. I cringe at some of the things they’ll remember. Perhaps there are moments, days, months, maybe even years that you wish you could erase and do over.

But don’t let this question make you feel guilty. Here’s the amazing thing about God and his grace. He uses it all, even the stuff we’d rather forget.

Grace redeems what’s gone before and gives us freedom to live more purposefully in our tomorrows. We’ll botch things again, to be sure. But every day, new mercy.

Think about how you want your own kids to remember their childhood. I’m talking about simple things.

• Every Friday after school, we get ice-cream.

• Most Friday nights are family-fun night. We pile on the furniture and watch a movie and eat caramel marshmallowy popcorn.

• They play outside with friends pretty much everyday.

• Birthday parties are flag football and cupcakes.

• We worship together on Sundays and eat turkey sandwiches and potato chips for lunch. Every Sunday, this is how we roll.

• We read or listen to Harry Potter.

• We try to eat dinner together as often as possible. Usually a simple, one-dish meal. We talk about our day and fuss at the kids for getting up too much or rocking back and forth on their chairs or chewing with their mouths open. Our dinner table is no Norman Rockwell scene, but we’re together and we’re talking and those things count for more than we think.

• I let them play for as many hours of the day as possible. My driveway is littered with cardboard and bungee cords and junk from our garage. Right now these things are a restaurant. {Notice I did not say that I play with them.}

Do you see what I’m getting at? There’s no perfect. I’m not super-mom. I am usually survival-mom. But there are things we value — margin, play, simple rhythms — and we try to structure life according to these values.

They will not remember perfect parents or perfect days. But I hope they’ll remember their time with us as loving and unhurried and free.

Here’s the last question and it’s aimed at those of us who prioritize passing along our faith to our children. It’s the toughest question of all, one that makes me wince a bit because I realize how far off the mark we are on any given day.

If we say that God is the most important thing — that their spiritual lives, Biblically-driven character formation, relationship with Christ, and love for others is the most important responsibility of parenting — why does our lifestyle reflect something altogether different?

Like I said earlier, don’t let this question induce guilt but instead let it produce awareness. Awareness that leads to repentance and beginning again and starting simple. I’m not going to tell you how to do this; it looks different for each family. But I do know that good things like academics, sports, and all sorts of enrichment activities can actually have devastating effects on the spiritual lives of our kids. We make time for everything. Except God. And I’m reminding myself as much as I’m reminding anyone reading this.

Jesus tells us that Heaven and earth will pass away, but His Word stands forever. 

So I ask you as I ask myself: What are we standing on as a family? What has lasting value and how does this Truth influence our everyday decisions about our busy-ness, commitments, and priorities?

I hope this series has inspired a bit more freedom in the way you think about busyness and opportunity, especially as it relates to our families.

I hope you feel more permission to say no to the things that aren’t really necessary.

I hope that your values and desires for your family will shine more brightly than the overcommitment of our culture.

Be brave. Stand firm. Know that it’s okay if your kids hates you for a day. Or thirty. Risk being misunderstood by others and don’t feel like you have to qualify every no.

A time for everything, but not everything all the time. 

And if all of your overachieving friends leave you in their wake of busyness and bursting calendars, be content to hang back with us in the slacker section. We’ll do lunch at the cardboard restaurant in my driveway.

/////

Part 3: Taking Time for Things to Settle

Part 4: How Cancelled Plans Can Make You Wise

Part 5: Make Time for Rock Sales

Fall has a way of trumping all other seasons when it comes to raking us over the coals of busyness. 

I love fall. I love its feel. I love its wardrobe. I love its traditions and new beginnings. 

But with new schedules come new opportunities. Fall delivers one invitation after another to say yes or to say no. Guilt and Duty show up on our front-porches with narrowed-eyes and hands on their hips. It’s hard to meet their glare and when we do, we’re prone to buckle under the pressure, say oh alright, figure out a way to make it work, and then resent the intrusion of this unwanted obligation in our lives. 

Ask me how I know.

With all three kids in school and all three kids asking to do a sport and all three kids invited to the myriad enrichment opportunities pitched by school, church, friends, and family, my decision-making anxiety has reached an epic state. Because any mom out there knows that opportunities for them ride hand in hand with obligation from us. 

Volunteering in their classes.

Helping with team meals and youth group meals.

Getting kids to and from practices.

Sending snacks for soccer and academic team practices.

Tournaments. Games. Field trips. Auditions. 

This is parenthood. This is what we signed up for. This is simply part of life if we’re choosing to live on the grid, provide our kids with opportunities, and be part and parcel of our community and micro-communities. 

But we do get to choose. And sometimes I think we forget that. I forget that.

When August rolled around, I said yes to very few “extras” that would take me beyond the agreed-upon priorities. After all, how is one to know how life is going to shake out when a new season and schedule begins? 

Why is it so hard to receive the grace to simply wait and then provide an answer when we feel we can make a wise decision?

We said yes to fall soccer for one and cheerleading for another. 

We said yes to winter basketball for the middle kid. 

We allowed the cheerleader-percussionist to remain in band but not play in Festival Band. 

We said yes to youth group and most church activities and opportunities with extended family. 

I said yes to Bible Study Fellowship and the 45-minute drive.

I said yes to helping with some pre-game meals and youth group dinners.  

I said yes to writing almost every day. 

We’ve said yes to our small group and to community. 

And there has been at least one no for each of those yeses.

Sign-up sheets for volunteering came and went. I didn’t forget. I simply chose to wait.

Now that we’re almost two months into things, we’re better able to gauge what we can do and what we cannot. For example, I’ve determined that I can give part of one morning a week to my son’s kindergarten classroom and that I really want to, not out of duty but out of desire. I just started this week and I can already tell you that this is going to be a good yes. 

But I waited before I gave it. I waited two whole months between the invitation and my response. I’ve learned the hard way that I didn’t want to commit to a good thing out of obligation or wishful thinking and then watch as the good thing morphs into a bad thing because it wasn’t the right season.

I’ve found that a rushed response often gives way to resentment.

There is so much for me to learn about prioritizing and time management and opportunity cost. I won’t lie. Most of what I’ve learned is from flat-out failure. My family and I have suffered from my tendencies toward overcommitment, giving my family my leftovers, people-pleasing, discounting the concept of margin, refusing rest and stillness, and thinking I have more hours in the day than I really do.

Can I get a witness?

I’m learning not to take my cues from my crazy busy culture. I’m learning not to compare our schedule to other schedules. I’m learning to see how the calendar translates into real life and real relationships with one another and then add things in slowly if we think it’s a fruitful opportunity. And I’m learning to cut things out if it’s not.

Of course, all of this is easier in theory than it is in practice. I had a full-on crying jag Saturday afternoon about this very issue. How to prioritize family and still prioritize others? How to order the tasks of my days? How to discern priorities? How to make room for the things that everyone wants me to make room for and that I also want to make room for? 

So if you think it’s wrapped up all in a neat and tidy bow around here, you’re mistaken. We’re kind of a mess. 

But we’re learning. God has us in a real and raw place of struggle and fight and working this out. That’s why I’m writing this little series. I’ve talked to enough of you to know that we’re not alone in our quest for balance and wisdom and stewarding our time.  

We want to be intentional about our yeses. We want to be wise and discerning. We want to make the most of these years together as a family and not spend our time running around after pursuits that are just fine but not necessarily fruitful in the long-term. 

We want to be purposeful with our time. I know you do too. So let’s keep talking about this. I’ll be back later in the week to dish a bit more. 

In the meantime, receive the grace to let things settle. If some opportunities are floating around in your world and you’re feeling the pressure to commit but not necessarily the permission, it’s okay to wait. 

Let the shape of this season determine the shape of your schedule.  

What are your thoughts about this? How do we confuse productivity with fruitfulness? How have you said no to a good thing in order to say yes to better things like margin or rest or waiting? I’d love to hear what you’ve got.

By the time I was in college, I had almost zero ability to say no to a good opportunity. 

I forewent sleep, sanity, and even doing my best schoolwork because I was a slave to saying yes. So much of my worth was tied to productivity, people-pleasing, involvement, and performance. 

I crammed multiple majors into four years, ran cross-country and track, maintained a work-study job, and held various positions in student government. I socialized and dated and pulled all-nighters for my political science exams. 

Don’t admire me. This was not impressive. This was insanity. 

Periodically throughout the year, I’d suffer a low-grade mini-breakdown. I’d become emotionally undone, physically ill, or both. I didn’t connect the dots at the time but in retrospect I’ve realized that I habitually sipped the toxic cocktail of stress, success, and sleep deprivation. 

I lived life as a functional yes-ahololic. 

I’m really not sure how I did it but the trend began in late middle-school / early high-school and I just ran with it. Youth certainly played a part. I’ve joked with those closest to me that I used up all of my energy and serotonin by the time I was 30. They don’t disagree.

It’s hard to unlearn decades of habits even after we know better. 

Physical limitations, time constraints, financial realities, and wisdom force me to say no to things all the time. But that doesn’t stop my mind and desires from screaming, But I want to do this! Why can’t we have this? Perhaps we can find a way to make it work.

Now that I’m a mom with kids who are old enough to have some interests and pursuits of their own, the yes and no stakes feel higher. I love these guys. I want the best for them. I want to expose them to opportunities that may uncover some of their own gifts and passions. 

But I was ill-prepared for the bombardment of good things that have come our way. We’ve said yes when we should have said no. And we’ve even said no and then wondered if we should have said yes. We’ve learned the hard way and I’m not naive enough to believe that this trial and error stuff is all behind us.

Just last week my husband and I said no to a very good thing for one of our kids, a good thing that this kid had practiced and tried out for. After weeks of hard work, they met the requirements and were invited to be part of a terrific opportunity, full of possibility, enrichment, and community. 

And we disallowed it. 

The backlash was fierce. If I have to hear, But everyone else’s parents said yes one more time, I’m taking off for Mexico.

It’s not that we don’t love the opportunity. We do. It’s not that we don’t think this child would benefit. They would. The problem is simple: the child’s plate is full. The child is committed to other things: school, homework, a sport, church, and family. The child is still a child. We, as the child’s guardians and teachers, have to set boundaries to guard their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. As a result, we made a loving but very unpopular decision. We’re all still a bit raw from the emotional carnage. 

In the whole scheme of things, it’s rather small. But it uncovered a gargantuan issue. An issue that’s layered with insecurity, fear, seeking peace in our children’s happiness, and comparison. It uncovered an ugly monster.  

I don’t have a formula or checklist for decision-making. My husband and I are figuring this out as we go and seeking wisdom. He’s further along than I am. 

Each family is unique. Each child is unique. Each paycheck is unique.  

But there’s one thing we all have 100% in common: time. 

We all have 24 hours in a day, no more and no less. We all have 7 days in a week, no more and no less. We were made to work and also to rest. There are God-given rhythms and requirements we cannot ignore. 

But we do. 

And I’d like to spend some time talking about this complicated issue that I’m still very much in the trenches of learning.

So come back next week and for a mini-series on this topic of margin and time and commitment. I suspect that most of us have unwittingly been co-opted by our own culture and by the monster of comparison more than we realize. We’ll talk about rest, opportunity cost, and seeking wisdom as we make decisions. 

I invite you to join me.