Extracurricular Activities

This is the first season in over four years that we are not participating in some kind of extracurricular activity. We started with two seasons of baseball. So much fun. The last six seasons have been full of soccer with swim team in the summer. We've thrown in a little choir. A little karate.

About a year ago I was talking to a lady who I go to church with and have so much respect for and admire very much. She has five children of her own who are all grown. I mentioned to her my busy schedule with four soccer practices that week, three games on Saturday, a speaking assignment to a congregation of about 100+ people on Saturday, a huge carnival at school in which I was PTO treasurer and needed to go help with $$, Sharing time on Sunday, etc. It was busy. She smiled at me and I can't remember quite how she said it, but in such a loving, tender way that it really touched my heart. She told me when her children were young they were involved in all those kinds of activities, too. One evening she pulled into her garage and realized that all her time was being devoted to all these extracurricular activities and she was loosing focus on what was most important, her children. I thought and thought about that and looked at my family. Were we doing what was most important? Were we eating supper together as a family? Were we having family prayer together daily? Were we reading scriptures together as a family or even individually? What about Family Home Evening? Date night? Was my patience short because of the tighter schedules? Was I able to develop relationships with each of my children so that when times were rough, we would be able to talk and feel comfortable? I then realized my priorities weren't in the right place. And so we decided to take a season off. Yes, it was also inspired by the soon-to-be addition to our family, but I think I would have taken the break anyways.

Last night Taneal asked me why all her friends could do soccer and she couldn't. She was sincere and not at all critical. She said it was tough having a new baby because it limited us in so many ways. She opened the door for me to really explain that it wasn't the baby at all. I asked her many of the above questions and then asked her what was more important: Our family or a season or two of soccer? I then told her we hopefully wouldn't take too much time off, but we needed to focus on what was most important and once we got that down we could start adding things to our schedule and see how it went. But until we figured out the basics, we were going call it quits to all the extracurricular activities. Taneal really understood and even agreed with me.

And this dear lady who helped me refocus said that once her children were grown, she asked them if they felt cheated or if they felt like they had missed out because they quit doing all the extras, and not one of them even remembered not doing all the extras. They were able to develop and focus on their family and create the strong family relationships that they still carry today.

We are all different in what we can do and what is most important. If I didn't have so many children maybe we could still do all the sports and activities. If I had a different personality, maybe that would enable us to do more. But for now this is where I am in my life and what my family needs. Maybe next year we will have a handle on the basics to where we can step up the game. But until then, this is my life, this is my family, and they are what is most important.