Are You a Time-Starved Family?

I'm currently reading a very good book called, "The Time-Starved Family: Helping Overloaded Families Focus on What Matters Most", by Deanne Flynn.  I highly recommend it if you are feeling overwhelmed and stressed out by your family's schedule, and especially if you have little babies and children so you can avoid getting caught up in the "my child has to do everything before they can even read" syndrome.  These are some things to ask yourself to determine if you a time-starved family.  Have you ever heard the following statements (complaints, whines, etc.) coming out of your mouth?

• Family prayer?  I can't get all my kids together at the same time to have family prayer!
• Family scripture study??  Who has time for that?
• Family dinner?  We are lucky to eat, much less eat together as a family!
• Family Home Evening?  With all our activities, we do our own version of family home evening while driving to our next ___________ (fill in the blank, class, activity, practice, etc.).
• Family time?? Does time together in the car count?  If so, we have hours of family time each day!
• If my child wants to be a superstar ________________(fill in the blank, athlete, musician, dancer, etc.) then they have to start as young as possible, like 3 years old.
• Being well rounded means you have: sports practice, music lessons, dance lessons, art lessons, after school academic classes or tutoring, voice lessons, on and on. You get the picture.

I must admit I was on the "do it all" bandwagon.  But I'm trying to get off the wagon!  I used to take great pride (clue...DANGER word!) in rattling off my list of the many things my kids were involved in and that took up our time. It somehow made me feel like I was being a good mother to be so BUSY (being under Satan's yoke).  Now it just makes me sad.  My favorite quote from the book so far is, "Eternal life.....don't miss it for the world."  I want to do a big cross stitch of that and put it on the wall!

I agree with the author in her suggestion to choose one sports activity (or other activity if your kids aren't into sports) and one music activity per child at a time.  That's it!  I usually try to stick to that, but sometimes I go over.  Like right now Siu has dance (jazz, tap, ballet) class, Tahitian dance class and Up With Kids.  She also wanted to play soccer this spring.  I bravely have just ignored that request.  I talked with her yesterday and we decided she will finish out the commitments she has made to those activities, two finish in May and the other in June.  After that I will let her choose what she wants to do.  She decided on gymnastics and violin.  That's not necessarily what I would have chosen, but that's what she wants to do.  So I'm learning to let go and hoping that will be a good thing for our family.  I'm hoping we will be able to make time to do the things that really matter and if there's left over time, then we can do the other stuff.  Not the other way around!  I'm trying to embrace the "simple life" and hope that by doing so our life will be more fulfilling, spiritual, and more family centered and we won't miss eternal life for the world and the worldly things that can take over our lives if we let them.