It doesn’t have to be this way

Fun now, happy memory later. (Image by Stain_Marylight from Pixabay)

When I speak of my life as a child growing up in a small town in Maine, I’m not exaggerating or idealizing when I say that there was endless time to play. 

Back in the olden days of the 1980s, kindergarten lasted only a half day, there was no homework until third or fourth grade, and children who were barely out of the single digits could roam around on bikes or on foot. Older kids enjoyed a six-hour school day and no carpool — just a short bus ride. Standardized testing was minimal, and we had outdoor recess all the way through middle school. We didn’t have devices or the Internet — we had the woods, the beach, the library, and each other. And lots and lots of snow. 

Because I was the oldest of four, there wasn’t really extra money for activities (or people to take me to them). I missed out on a lot of opportunities compared to the well-off suburban kids I’ve spent most of my career working with. However, I would not trade those early experiences for anything. 

I often think back to my childhood when I bear witness to the misery that I hear about from so many families. They are overwhelmed by long school days and copious amounts of homework. They are perilously over-scheduled and relentlessly tested. There’s little time for being outside or just being together. 

Some people thrive on the intensity of this kind of competitive lifestyle. Which is just what it is: A lifestyle. That means that it is a choice. To live in an area with a high cost of living, sign your kids up for a million activities, and prioritize homework over sleep — these are all choices. 

What concerns me is that some of the parents I speak to seem to feel trapped. They don’t recognize their choices. They are unwilling to make the necessary trade-offs that might lead to happiness. They are hanging onto all possible sources and indicators of success, unable to let go of any of the pieces. Since you can’t put all your energy into everything all the time, failure is inevitable. This pressure to perform gets passed on to the kids and sets them up for anxiety and behavior problems.

It’s sad and ironic that well-intentioned families who want the best for themselves and their kids end up creating such unhappy lives. The constant stress of a busy lifestyle takes a massive toll and doesn’t lead to the bright future everyone is hoping for. Maybe we can create high achievers this way, but at what cost? Those who succeed will have to spend decades learning that they are worthy of love without all of their achievements; those who do not succeed, at least according to the metrics that have been set forth by their parents, will have to spend decades learning that they are worthy of love despite their perceived failures. The art of living — the ability to make a happy life, today, with what surrounds you — is neglected. 

I’m here to ask: Why should a peaceful childhood, like the one I had, be wistfully considered and dismissed as unrealistic or impossible? Do we really prefer the fast-paced, smartphone-driven, percentile-ranked experience that American children are currently experiencing? Or is it that people don’t even realize that it’s still possible, in the 21st century, to have a joyful, simple life? 

As we get older, it’s harder to change direction. It’s difficult to admit that your values don’t match up with the life you’re actually living. We feel hesitant to give up what we have, even when it’s not working. It takes courage to venture into the unknown, to do something different than what your peers are doing, and take a risk to move toward a dream.

If the pain of the current situation is bad enough, we can generate the courage to transform our lives. It helps to know that there is something else out there — something beyond grades and money and fitting in. I promise you, there is.