My mom was a single mom, a graduate student, and she also used to take us to campus with her. No doubt this is why I am now a college professor.

Thank you, Glinda, this was a delightful meditation on the topic of, well, meditation.

We do have a deal that we will only enroll our kids in extra-curriculars that they ask for. So far that has meant two courses of Saturday AM gymnastics and that’s it. No soccer, softball, or music lessons so far. I say it’s because they won’t be committed to it unless they really want it, but I secretly suspect it’s because I am personally too lazy to be carting them everywhere on weekends.

The second part of that wonderment is, What about the parents? What about THEIR time, and what THEY might like to do with it? Maybe Mommy would be better off taking that judo class HERSELF, instead of sublimating her longing. It seems to me as if the primary lesson children are learning is that life revolves around children, that to be an adult means to be a chauffeur, and that adults do nothing interesting on their own – it’s All About the Kids.

I think the greatest gift my mother gave me was a love of reading, and the time to do it. I learned from example that the best way to spend one’s time was with a book. I now have to substitute “free time” for that initial assessment, but it’s still one of the best and happiest ways to spend time. My folks gave me a chance to sample a few different things when I was a child – ballet lessons and riding lessons, how to run a sewing machine – but these were activities I actually requested the chance to learn, and I got lessons when I was old enough to benefit from them; there was plenty of time to ride my bike, and play with Barbie, and make toys for my younger siblings. It seems to be very different from the way children are scheduled to the nanosecond these days.

If you just feed ‘em, love ‘em, and leave ‘em alone, it’s remarkable how well they do.

I love listening to my boy build with Legos and K’nex and sing/hum the theme song from Star Wars over and over. That kid can self-amuse like nobody’s business, without even turning on a t.v.