A family centered life

From the day my first child was born our life has been family centered. In the past 8 years I can only think of a very few times when I have been away from my kids and when I have been away from them they are with there Dad,Grandma or Aunt. As my children have gotten older I have had the chance to see how uncommon our family centered lifestyle is. People are often surprised when I tell them that my children do not leave me to go to school every day,if they have lessons for sports or music I stay with them and they have never stayed the night with anyone but there cousins. Now some people will read this and think that I am one of “those parents”. Over protective and smothering may even come to mind.But that's just not how I see it. I just love spending my days interacting with my children and husband.

Today I had a really interesting experience. My oldest son Isaiah went to his first scout day camp. Without my husband.Without me. I have to tell you I was sad. As everyone else is telling me how much I’ll enjoy only having to “deal with”(!?) three of my four kids for the day, I am sitting there with a frown on my face. I just love having him with me!  Now here is where it got interesting for me and here is where I find the difference between an “over protective” parent and a parent who just loves being being a family. I was THRILLED that he got to go! I was thrilled that he got to experience all that he did. I let him go to camp because I knew how much he would benefit from it and enjoy it.But I do not allow my kids to do every little thing there is to do out there! I make sure our time in our home together as a family FAR outweighs the time we spend apart.

In society today the family is falling apart. Mothers working outside the home to buy more “stuff” or to feel”fulfilled”, overscheduled stressed out  kids  trying to cope with school,homework,music lessons,sport,etc.and  disconnected dads.this is what we have and all these things are tearing our families apart. I think with a society like this we should all be a little more “over protective”.We should learn to say “no” a little more often.

We are all different.We all parent and run our families differently. For me I know that I enjoy having my family around me. I want to center our lives on what really matters,each other.