Part of my daily ritual is taking long walks and listening to podcasts, tuning out the world a little, to always be learning and growing. A big topic that is repeatedly coming up for me personally if when is enough, enough? As a Mother of three boys, a working parent, and someone who likes to see my children be engaged and growing all the time, life can become overwhelming in the blink of an eye. One sport too many per season, one homework assignment too many, end of year projects from teachers that don’t realize it is the parent’s homework and not the kids, it piles on thick quickly. I am regularly pushing for my children to have “free time” and to do nothing some days. I feel like I have to constantly push back on the social expectations set by other people on my little people and myself. Yes, of course I want my boys to achieve and be exposed to as much as possible, but to what extent? To have a stressed out Mother who is constantly riding them to work faster, work harder, stay on schedule, do the best job possible? I feel like I spend the majority of my afternoons acting like a drill sergeant and not a loving, patient Mom who is really listening to the needs of my kids or frankly my own needs. The intensity of the last school semester, sports season, and overall work load threw me into a physical mess. I think it is time to rethink the way we want to live our lives and keep pushing for down time, not being over scheduled, and not caring about how other’s choose to live their lives.
I hope you enjoy this podcast as much as I did. I also hope you enjoy the GOOP Podcast as much as I do each week, pushing me to be a better, more well person each day. #Gooppodcast #goop @goop
Stacie Steelman
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-goop-podcast/id1352546554?i=1000437391252
Kim John Payne’s work focuses on the feeling of overwhelm that a lot of us walk around with today. As an educator, school consultant, and family counselor, Payne helps people simplify their lives (which he writes about in Simplicity Parenting: Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids). People often misunderstand what it means to have a balanced life, says Payne. They’ll tell him that they’d like more time to be creative and to connect with others, and that they’d love to stop overscheduling their kids—but that’s not the world we live in and thus it’s unrealistic and unproductive. In Payne’s mind, this is a major misjudgment. We prepare our kids and ourselves for a world that is far more structured than it is today and than it will be tomorrow. In this chat, Payne makes a case against child-centered homes and shows us how to create the value-centered homes that he believes could change the culture for all of us. (For more, see The goop Podcast hub.)
