Practical Wisdom for an Unhurried Childhood

A photo snapped at just the right time becomes a treasure, a way of holding on to a memory or a season. Twenty years ago, we were visiting friends at a Vermont lakeside cabin. The location was a childhood dream come true. We all swam together—until I realized that we were swimming with big, grumpy turtles, and then I took refuge in a deck chair.

On one of our walks, our friends captured a picture of my four sons holding hands and walking down a dirt road together.

The picture was shot from behind, so the boys are walking away, and even though I see it every day on the dining room wall, it holds the same poignancy as it did that long-ago summer when we decided it would be perfect for our Christmas card. I was already seeing the handwriting on the wall. Although our oldest son couldn’t have been more than 10 and the youngest was only 2, I was beginning to know that childhood is finite and brutally brief. I knew the day was coming when, one by one, each of them would turn and walk away from our home.

And, of course, I was correct. We would have just eight more years of life with all four boys at home—eight years of continual food preparation, mountains of laundry, and dirty fingerprints on every light switch. Once the first child leaves the nest, the others seem to follow in quick succession.

I won’t romanticize those days, because they were a lot of work, but it was good work, and I’m grateful for the gift of that photo and its reminder that childhood is something to be savored.

Even though we are beset by the demands of modernity, we can make small changes with intention and with prayer. When childhood has sped by, and we’re looking at the photos, we’ll be glad that we did.

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Parenting in any era is not for the faint of heart, but especially in these days of synchronized Google Calendars and frenzied family dinners, we need to be reminded that parenting is a slow work. Even in my pre-Internet parenting days, I felt the pressure to be more and to do more, and it was counter-cultural even then to allow our children to experience the soul-fortifying benefits of waiting for what they wanted or entertaining themselves without a screen.

It’s not only our children who need to be initiated into the savoring life. It’s a generational project. As Couch remarks, “If we step into God’s invitations to slow down childhood, we will see a resurgence of joyful young people who know themselves to be beloved children of God and who have a deep capacity to give and receive love.”

Even though we are beset by the demands of modernity, we can make small changes with intention and with prayer. When childhood has sped by, and we’re looking at the photos, we’ll be glad that we did.

Holding You in the Light,

Grace Couch has produced an indispensable resource for parents caught up in the busy season of raising a family. In Savoring Childhood, she advocates for a gentle pace and then provides vision and strategies for getting there. @ivpress

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