Successful Homemaking with Toddlers: Is it Possible? Part 4
In this series so far, we've talked about redefining "successful homemaking", learning to rely totally upon the Lord, and seeking your husband's counsel and direction.Today, I want to share with you something which is near and dear to my heart:
3) Successful homemaking with toddlers can only happen when we have our priorities in the right place. (Some of the below is taken from the Finding Time series, in case it sounds familiar to some of you!)
When we say "yes" to one thing, we are also saying "no" to something else. I purposed when I was 12 years old to wrap my life around things which would count for Eternity. Though sadly I sometimes lose sight of this goal, the Lord often reminds me of it and I, once again, re-evaluate what I am doing in light of Eternity.
Two questions which help eliminate much of the stuff that can clutter up life are:
1) Does this glorify the Lord and honor my husband?
2) Will this matter in Eternity?
If the answer is "yes" to both of those questions, then I need to evaluate it in light of the order of importance.
My priorities at this season of my life as a child of God, wife, mother, and homemaker, are, in order:
1) My relationship to the Lord.
2) My relationship with my husband.
3) My responsibility to train, raise, and nurture the children the Lord has blessed us with.
4) My role as keeper and guardian of our home.
5) Everything else: Fellowship with and ministry to other Christians in our local area, reaching out to the lost, blogging, and so forth.
I highly encourage you to take time today to list your priorities for the season of life you are in order of importance and then evaluate every opportunity in light of those. You will probably quickly find there are a whole lot of things you can eliminate--things which might be good things, things which might be great things for others to do, but things which, for you, will only distract you from the best things.
I'm slowly learning that while it is great to be inspired by others and it is wonderful to learn new skills, it's okay to do less.
Really, it's okay.
In fact, it is probably more than okay; it might be the best thing for your home and family if you learn to say "no," slow down, and savor life right now.
We can't all do everything and we would do well to realize this. Instead, we should stop comparing ourselves to others and start focusing on what God has called us to do.
This will mean different things for different people as we are all in different seasons with different husbands and different families. Do what God has called you to do and seek to do that well. Don't spend your life trying to do more than you can do, be more than you should be, and run yourself ragged trying to impress or outdo other people.
I'm learning that it's okay in this season of our lives for me to keep dinner very simple (and sometimes do my dinner dishes in the morning!), to be a minimalist in decorating, to downsize my online activities, to limit my outside activities, to stay home most days, and to say "no" more often.
It's okay that we've cleared out a lot of excess commitments and stuff so that we can focus on what is most important--pleasing the Lord, having a strong marriage, raising up our children for the glory of God. We're focusing on basic, simple, fundamental things here--things which will matter in Eternity.
And so, I encourage you to also be free to do less and focus your time and energies on what really matters.
Next in this series, we'll be talking about some practical ideas for cultivating organization in your homes when you have toddlers. Stay tuned!
I'd love to hear from other moms and women out there on how you keep your priorities in place and what helps you to eliminate the "good" things in order to focus on the best things.
Labels: Home Management and Organization
posted by Crystal Paine at 7:05 AM
12 Comments:
Amen and amen! :-)
Dear Crystal,
Just a question from personal curiosity- and for edification: do you think that intentional outreach should not be part of the regular schedule in a Christian home? I really enjoyed Joy's post in this regard, but I'm still wondering about this, given that you so emphasize minimizing outside commitments.
...I come from a very ministry-oriented home, where the children's lives were very much organized around my parents' outreach and outreaches of our own, so there was an outward focus in almost every thing we did. Going out from our home into the community (nursing homes, hospitals, pro-life and political events, etc.) was a part of our regular routine from a very young age. It is interesting for me to compare that model with what I have learned from your blog, and I am still learning :)
Hi Crystal,
Great topic! I've recently been under tremendous pressure to put church activities (over and above regular church services) above my relationship with God, home and my husband's priorities for me.
Thankfully my husband excersises tremendous wisdom in this area and has promptly put a stop to all the pressure!
I recently wrote up a post about this in case anyone is interested.
Oops, forgot to include the link!
http://farmhomelife.blogspot.com/2008/04/is-church-more-important-than-home-or.html
Trixie
I say no to a lot of classes and structured activities for my son. I don't think a one-year-old needs art classes!
MM: If ministry outside the home causing one to neglect home and family in order to do so, then one definitely needs to take a step back and re-examine things. However, I can't say what will work for each individual family since some can do more than others and do a great job of it. :)
For us personally, we try to do as much outreach from our home as we can and then for things outside of our home, we seek things that our whole family can be involved in and do together. When my children are older, I'm sure things will change quite a bit, but that is what works best for us with only littles at home.
Since this post is specifically for moms with toddlers, I am wanting to encourage young moms to especially not fall prey to the go-go-go syndrome and lose their family and home and sanity in the process. There is freedom in focusing on what the best things are for us at our own season of our lives!
I think it is always a challenge to be discerning about the good verses the best.
One lesson I learned early on in my mothering career that has served me well is this: Just because I *can* and just because I would be good at it, doesn't mean I *should.* For me, when people would say, "Oh, would you please ______ because you would be SO good at it!" I would feel flattered and have this feeling like I should jump in because someone noticed that I had an ability in some area. But, it's so easy to get dragged into a bunch of stuff and have no time or energy for the truly important stuff.
Also, I think a lot of women get into wanting to be "nice" and make people happy, so it is hard for us to say no to requests to do things. (jobs at church, for instance) Although it was not easy for me to start saying no, I got better at it with practice! :) A nice side benefit to this is that once people know you say no to a lot of things, they stop asking. :) (Yay!)
Now, I am not saying to do nothing outside the home or to not teach a Sunday School class or whatever. I think that these issues are very individual and need to be handled by yourself and your husband. You may really find that it is the best thing for you to do to give some of your time and energy to an outreach or service of some sort. There's nothing wrong with that. (we can go to extremes on either end of this)
Also, just another perspective on this: Sometimes you should say yes even when you don't feel like it. For instance, recently there was a bridal shower for a gal at church. It was put together with short notice. But, there ended up only being myself and the hostess and the bride there from our church family. (and I live the farthest away and have the most children) I was really sorry and saddened to see that others did not make the effort to be there. (most of them live within 3 minutes of the location) I'm sure they probably all had some sort of reason, but in this case I feel like it is very important to make a member of our church family feel loved and supported. What a loss for the bride to not have gotten that!
There isn't one neat calculation for what to do and what not to do. I think that being mindful of the issues is a good start, while knowing that it is probably never 100% possible to always make the perfect choice.
Thank you for this.....I often feel like an outcast among the moms I know because I DO put my family first, instead of my socializing......and because I refuse to spend hundreds of dollars on toddler classes. It's comforting to know other women are at home, loving thier simple lives :-)
This is an area the Lord has showed me I needed to change. I started to turn my focus to my husband and Children instead of with all the pressures of the Ministry. Being a Preachers wife comes with a lot of pressures, to do and to Be a certian way. It even got to a point of with me, where I was so stressed out it was affecting my health. So we (hubby and I ) made some changes. The Lord showed me back in January where my focus needs to be and really it has been a precious things for me to realize that turning my focus to my hubby and children has made me feel more important, as though I am actually doing something for the kingdom of God. If "I" dont do these things to be a Help Meet to my hubby, or take the time to train, teach, love my children then some one else will, or sad to say a lot of neglect will be taking place for both. I surely want to be the one to provide all this with 100% of me, to my sweet family that the Lord has blessed me with. Thanks for the post
Jennifer
For mums of young children who would like to stretch the creativity of the littles without outside activities I recommend "The creative family" a book by Amanda Soule Blake, a SAHM of 3 kids and author of soulemama blog. Although not Christian in approach, it's focused on strenghtening family ties and developing fun activities at home.
Antonella
What a great post. The Lord has definitely been speaking to my heart lately on these issues. I enjoyed reading your insight!
I look at this time of having a toddler as a season. My 3-year-old is extremely active and difficult to handle in public. So while it would be nice to go out to eat with a friend, I usually do not. I don't like getting a babysitter any more than I have to because he's already in daycare 40+ hours a week. When he's older, we'll be able to do more things . . . and I'm sure I'll be able to keep up with housekeeping much better too. It's a season.
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