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In a culture where children do too much, what happens when you let your children do nothing at all?
Why Can't We Just Play? chronicles one glorious summer when I let my kids take "time off" from all scheduled activities - no camps, classes, or any kind of structure at all. We had an old-fashioned, 1950's style summer. |
I’ve read a ton self-help/parenting/how the heck do I do this/type of books and this one is different. The author is funny!! I related to her so much. This is a summer must read for any busy parent trying to navigate through the world of raising kids.
Eliza Poppy Co Lifestyle Blog, 6/23/16
My original intention for reading this book was reassurance in my unpopular parenting choices. We live in an area where kids are involved in multiple extra-curricular activities, participate in competitive sports by age 6, and the pressure to "keep up" is unreal. So I figured this memoir, written by a mother intent to recreate a summer like the 1950s, would be right up my alley. Little did I know how much this book would affect me and in ways I didn't expect.
This paragraph from the last chapter sums it up: "This is the message of the 1950s: their low expectations. Or rather, their reasonable expectations. We demand so much more of our family life - our family experience - than previous generations did. And it saddles all of us with an unachievable burden. If you're looking for the main difference between childhood in the 1950s and now, it is that children were freer then. Free to imagine, free to be bored, free to fail, free to be average." You know me and my unreasonable expectations for my life. The "permission" to unburden myself from the demands of our city and (more importantly) my perfectionist, overachieving tendencies...let's just say it was a reminder I really needed. It's okay not to carry the weight of every.single.thing.
Ashley. The Big White Farmhouse.com
I’ve read a ton self-help/parenting/how the heck do I do this/type of books and this one is different. The author is funny!! I related to her so much. This is a summer must read for any busy parent trying to navigate through the world of raising kids.
Eliza Poppy Co Lifestyle Blog, 6/23/16
My original intention for reading this book was reassurance in my unpopular parenting choices. We live in an area where kids are involved in multiple extra-curricular activities, participate in competitive sports by age 6, and the pressure to "keep up" is unreal. So I figured this memoir, written by a mother intent to recreate a summer like the 1950s, would be right up my alley. Little did I know how much this book would affect me and in ways I didn't expect.
This paragraph from the last chapter sums it up: "This is the message of the 1950s: their low expectations. Or rather, their reasonable expectations. We demand so much more of our family life - our family experience - than previous generations did. And it saddles all of us with an unachievable burden. If you're looking for the main difference between childhood in the 1950s and now, it is that children were freer then. Free to imagine, free to be bored, free to fail, free to be average." You know me and my unreasonable expectations for my life. The "permission" to unburden myself from the demands of our city and (more importantly) my perfectionist, overachieving tendencies...let's just say it was a reminder I really needed. It's okay not to carry the weight of every.single.thing.
Ashley. The Big White Farmhouse.com
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You Definitely Know You're A Mom When ... The perfect gift for mothers with young children ... Each page finishes the sentence "You Definitely Know You're a Mom When ..." with a different snippet from a mom's life such as ... "your dog becomes a dog again." or "... you're looking forward to your upcoming colonoscopy as some much-needed quiet time away from the kids." Available on Amazon. |