by Emily Ley
More Good, Less Great
In what areas of life have you strived for great? What might the good alternative look like?
Good Great
[Your Response Here] [Your Response Here]
[Your Response Here] [Your Response Here]
[Your Response Here] [Your Response Here]
PRECIOUS AND WILD
If I’ve felt burned out by chasing great, I wonder if my children have felt it as well? Just a quick scan of the news will confirm that tweens and teens in America are often deeply stressed and burned out by school and extracurriculars. But what about little ones? Have mine picked up on or even felt some of the anxiety and depletion I have felt, overwhelmed and exhausted by the world around them?
Bryan and I always laugh when we say that we thought for sure God would give us one child who was the “quiet one,” the relaxed one of the bunch. We were definitely going to have one kiddo that tended to be a bit of a wallflower or more introspective and introverted than the others. We fought long and hard for our three children, the answers to many prayers said on knees sore from years of nightly pleas.
Our children are precious—and they are wild.
Every single one of them.
God didn’t have any mercy on the volume level in our home when He gave us these three. They each have big personalities and lots to say, often at the same time. It’s funny though, because they’re each very introspective in their own way as well. They refuel by being quiet and alone—sometimes tucked in a chair somewhere reading or looking over the pictures in a book—even if it’s forced quiet time. They think critically and deeply about things (right before shouting their thoughts and ideas). They have big emotions and love fiercely, which triggers heated disagreements at times. And they are some of the most creative kids I’ve ever met. I’m a big fan if you haven’t noticed. They’re just good kids.
But those big personalities, combined with our big personalities, make for one chaotic household sometimes. As the resident expert in organizing, planning, and simplifying, I’ve learned that rhythms and routines absolutely, hands down keep our world turning over here. They help us avoid tantrums. They keep the wheels on the family bus. They give our kids a feeling of safety and connection. And they help Bryan and me fit into our days all the tasks that go along with keeping a family of five running. Meal planning, calendar managing, laundry routines, shoe baskets, laying out clothes the night before—these things make a huge difference in our lives.
But as I’ve tinkered with and mastered these tactics in our home, I’ve begun to wonder more about the underlying factors:
the need for systems and processes
the beauty in the benefits of these systems
Why do cadence and rhythm and structure soothe my kids’ emotions so much? What forces in our lives are these tactics counteracting? It’s a simple equation really. If simplification and routine soothe my soul fires (fires stoked by burnout and overwhelm) and help me feel calmer, can we assume the same for our kids—that they may be experiencing mini–soul fires that could be tamped down in the same way? If x is a flurry of feelings manifesting from “too much” and too fast a pace for grown-ups and y is the peace that comes from structure, then x for our children—even if on a smaller scale and at different levels—must be equally soothed by y.
What it all adds up to (you’re welcome for this math lesson) is this: I think our kids are burned out too.
This means childhood is in danger.
And that terrifies me.
There is magic in the inherent slowness of childhood, in being unburdened by grown-up worries and hurrying. So much of a child’s mind and soul are developed during unstructured imaginative play and exploration like digging for earthworms, conquering dirt piles, and connecting the dots of creativity while wielding a bottle of glue and a handful of crayons. But what happens to these moments when they are enveloped or even swallowed up by rush, noise, distraction, and overscheduling? What happens to these moments, and what happens to these children?
There is magic in the inherent slowness of childhood.
Our burned-out kids are missing out on the goodness of being little.
Although so many things outside my home are out of my control, I can, even if just a little, control what happens within the walls of this house. If I, as the mother with an inherent skill and love for home keeping, can approach raising our kids with grace and simplicity in mind, then I believe we can save our kids’ childhoods. We can proactively embrace less rush, less noise, and less chaos to allow more rhythm, more peace, and more play to live inside our home. So I set out to create a space and a cadence to our lives that honors our quest for the family life we want.
LEANING IN
A lot of my past anxiety was fueled by being at odds with the season of life I was living. I pressed against the joys of being young, childless newlyweds because we so desperately wanted a baby. I pressed against the craziness of having infant twins at home because it was so hard to juggle work at the same time. Everything changed when I learned to lean in.
I’d love to tell you that I learned to lean in because I had this incredible spiritual awakening. But really, I began to lean in because I was simply tired of the struggle. I started to weaken my grip on things: my need to control my children and their behavior, my need to keep a perfectly tidy home, and my fear that if I stopped hustling so hard, my business would fall apart.
It didn’t. None of my fears came true. In fact, once I stopped pressing so hard against life, it started to let me in. I started to experience it more fully. And I started to learn to give myself heaps of grace.
My very first book is called Grace, Not Perfection: Embracing Simplicity, Celebrating Joy. The book you’re holding in your hands is a continuation in my journey to allow more grace into life and, especially, into parenting. You are doing a good job, Mama. You can let go a little.
AN ACCIDENTAL EXPERIMENT
The Ley family happened upon an accidental experiment in mid-2018 when we moved into a rental home while our new home was being built. The rental was a thousand-square-foot beach condo that belonged to a friend. It was fully furnished and held many of that family’s belongings for vacation trips they made to the beach. We had moved to our new city early and were living in this condo for three months so our kids could start at their new school at the beginning of the school year. This meant that we had to pack clothes, toiletries, dishes, and toys just for our time there. The rest of our possessions would be stored until the big move, once our home was completed.
I gathered three plastic bins with lids and let each child pack his or her favorite toys. Tyler packed his entire bin full of Magna-Tiles (magnetic blocks he uses to build elaborate castles and forts). Brady packed his entire bin full of all the Legos he could fit. And Caroline packed hers with sparkly princess dresses, shoes, and hats for dress-up. I snuck in a few coloring books and a box of crayons as well.
For the entire three months, my kids played with nothing else. They ran outside and got sandy at the beach, and they played with their bins when it was raining. They didn’t have a playroom or even their own bedrooms to play in (in fact, all three shared a bedroom during our time there). They squeezed into the little living room, Legos and Magna-Tiles on every last surface, Caroline parading up and down the stairs in her Fancy Nancy shoes.
They played and they played and they played.
Bryan and I were flabbergasted at just how happy they were with a fraction of their normal toy and activity options. What about the stacks of boxes full of robots and kits and sets and light-up, blinking, motorized toys back in Tampa? What about the hundreds if not thousands of dollars that had been spent on all those toys? I’d simplified our collection of toys in years prior, culling the stash to primarily play-based toys, books, and items that inspired creativity and imaginative thinking. Still, simplifying down to just the favorites they had chosen for this season was a whole other level.
And yet they kept playing. For
three months. With just those toys and each other.
I learned two huge things through this experience:
With less volume and fewer
bells and whistles,
our kids are getting
so much more—more creativity,
more IMAGINATION,
more interaction,
and more JOY.
My children don’t need a lot of fancy toys and games to be happy and to use their imaginations.
My kids’ attitudes and abilities to focus improved with fewer options and fewer decisions to make.
It was almost as if the kids enjoyed these favorite playthings more than ever before, figuring out new ways to use and play with just what they had. Instead of flitting from one toy to the next every few minutes, they made new creations, utilizing objects found around the house—an upside-down cup as a spaceship for the Lego guy astronauts or a series of shoes as a range of mountains for Magna-Tile cabins to inhabit. Every now and then, Princess Caroline would pretend to be a dinosaur and trample their creations, but for the most part, this was the most fun, engaged, and imaginative play I’d seen from my kids in a long time.
Essentially, our kids had two choices in our rental house: go outside and play or stay inside and play with the few toys they had. The television didn’t get many channels, so we rarely turned it on. We spent rainy afternoons gathered around the white kitchen table, crayons strewn about, coloring books scattered across the surface. When it was sunny outside, we went straight out the door in search of sandpile adventures, seashells to collect, or an open space to kick a ball around. What more did we need?
When we moved from that rental into the home we live in now, our living space expanded quite a bit. And as all the toys and possessions from Tampa were unloaded into our new space, into our fresh start, box after box . . .
Well, we saved the empty cardboard boxes and repacked some toys right back up to donate or give away. Funny thing is, our kids still gravitate toward the same toys they played with at the condo. And that’s what we have out: toys to build with (Legos or Magna-Tiles), toys to pretend with (dress-up clothes), and toys to create with (crayons, glue, scissors, and paper). We have some board games tucked away in a closet, but otherwise, we’ve found that these toys support the childhood we want them to have. With less volume and fewer bells and whistles, our kids are getting so much more—more creativity, more imagination, more interaction, and more joy.
RELIABLE RHYTHMS
I’ll be honest. Moving into this rental home unnerved me quite a bit. I was already nervous about moving our kids from one city to another, one school to another, and then from one home to another twice in the span of a few months. To help ease the jolts of those transitions, we decided to make sure we carried a few rhythms and routines from one home to the next.
In our old home, each of our children had a shoe basket that held their most-worn shoes and socks. They know to put their shoes away here and are able to put on their shoes when it’s time to go. The baskets are easily accessible, always near the front door. Even though we had to cram the baskets under a console in the rental house, they came with us.
Our Reliable Rhythms
What rhythms do you and your family have that you can carry into times of stress or transition? What rhythms would you like to create?
[Your Response Here]
We feed our children breakfast at the kitchen bar every morning. We have for as long as I can remember. That time together, with Mom and Dad bustling about the kitchen, making coffee and filling water bottles for the day, is special and something they expect. So we were mindful to carry that tradition to our temporary home as well. We also made sure bedtime routines and Friday night pizza parties were on standby amid the transition.
These punctuation marks on daily life gave our children something familiar to cling to and fall back on when the rest of life looked different. They knew they could depend on these things. This put the emphasis on our family and traditions and off the building in which we lived.
WORN-OUT KIDS
I’ve witnessed, especially with our eldest, the ways that decision fatigue and overstimulation can deprive kids of the carefree joys and jubilation of childhood. This happens not just with toys and possessions but also with daily life activities. When parents are running at a frenetic pace, children often get overlooked. One of the biggest conundrums here is a sentence I’ve said in my own head over and over: I’m doing all of this for you.
Our kids are asking for our attention and engagement in so many ways, as are our jobs, bills, relationships, and more. And so we say, yet again, that we’re busy.
“Just a minute, sweetie. I’m tying your sister’s shoes. I’ll get to yours next.”
“I just have to answer this email about your birthday party.”
“Mommy needs to take this phone call from the T-ball coach.”
And the underlying subtext is: I’m cooking dinner and trying to write a grocery list and a meal plan for next week so you can be fed. I’m going in a million directions with soccer snacks and being class mom and more. I’m doing all of this for you. And no, I can’t change anything about what I’m doing because without all this tedious work and feverish box-checking and planning ahead, you wouldn’t have this life you have.
Oof.
In this scenario, let’s take a look at “this life.”
Is this life for said child what we’d intended for him? (Full, yes—of activities and busyness.) Does he have the time and space to creatively and thoughtfully explore his eight-year-old world? To get outside and get sun on his freckled face, to dig with his hands and make worlds with bricks and rocks and clumps of mud? To track dirt across the floor while he washes up for supper? Does he have thoughtful, flexible boundaries guiding his path and choices? Does he have the time, freedom, and mental space to ponder his eight-year-old questions? (Why does a car make that sound when you start it? Why does water bubble when it boils?) Does he have the freedom to be bored, to be creative in his activities, and to play imaginatively? Is he able to lay his head on his pillow at night and spill out his heart, even if just a little, to his mom or dad, and then drift off to sleep having unburdened himself of big emotions?
Or is his little life too full? Is he being shuffled from one sport he loves . . . to another activity he enjoys . . . to play practice, which he seems to like? Is he, like us, too often spending his “down time” in front of a screen, all bright colors and loud, quick noises, scene-after-scene flashing in front of his eyes at a pace that is heart-quickening? Is he doing homework with the television buzzing behind him, electronics dinging beside him, and voices chattering in front of him? Is his sleep interrupted by worries and thoughts he’s been unable to unpack with a parent who has time to listen? Is his little body being affected by preservatives and sugar in convenience foods handed from front seat to back during fast-paced mornings, hurried afternoon errands, and jam-packed weekends between birthday parties and play dates?
Are the expectations too high, the dependable rhythms too few, the noises too loud, and the pace too quick? Is his childhood being sacrificed for “all the things we must do”? What if we, as the grown-ups in this family unit, set aside some of “this life”? And what might that do for this sweet little boy? Is there a better way?
Are the expectations too HIGH,
the dependable rhythms too FEW,
the noises too LOUD,
and the pace too quick?
Is childhood being sacrificed for
“all the things we must do”?
Could we allow him to be loud and make mistakes? Could we quit a few things and slow the pace just a little? Could we hold him just a little while while he gets the last of those tears out instead of reprimanding him for being emotional over something silly (like that his brother broke his Legos). Could we allow him to come home after a busy day of trying his hardest at school and behaving his absolute best and allow him to be his flawed, imperfect self a little? Could
we honor the everyday imperfection in ourselves by gracefully and lovingly letting some things slide in our children?
What a world we could create if our children were loved with that kind of grace and patience! I fail at it every single day. But I keep coming back to this thought: the work of bringing up kids in a too-fast, too-loud world is serious stuff. It’s hard and thankless sometimes. But the more I slow down, the more the “rewards” reveal themselves to me.
Maybe it’s because our home is a little quieter or our days are a little less full, but I’ve found myself noticing things that were always there before but somehow are now right in front of me, in focus: the way Caroline pats her daddy’s back during bedtime prayers, the way Brady still slips his hand into mine walking into school (those days are numbered, I know), or the way Tyler kisses my nose whenever we say goodbye or goodnight.
My goodness, those are beautiful things. Beautiful rewards and nuggets of goodness that get drowned out by the noise of the world when we believe more is more, when we believe great is always better than good. Beautiful rewards that, in a less-is-more life, become the high notes of the song, not the background noise.
Applesauce Muffins
Below is a special family recipe that my mom passed down to me. Applesauce muffins are the perfect simple comfort treat to share. They are best served warm, with butter, and can be frozen for future yummy breakfasts or snacks. They are a favorite around our home.
Ingredients:
• 2 cups applesauce
• 2 eggs
• 4 cups flour
• 2 sticks butter
• 2 cups sugar
