One of the Advent practices my family has adopted this year is to cut out screen time Monday through Friday. Instead of spending twenty to thirty minutes with Bluey or Pikachu, we play family games or do a puzzle together. With the winter darkness settling in early, we usually end up with about an hour of quality time together per night.
“It’s family game night!” they exclaim as we wrap up dinner and start baths early in preparation for our time together.
You would think we have never played Uno with them in their lives by the way they have so eagerly looked forward to our evenings together. We are a homeschooling family, and my husband works from home, so let’s just say we don’t have a shortage of time together. However, something about this time being devoted to them, specifically carved out for them and designed to let them take the reins, has simply delighted them.
And it’s been good for us as parents, too. Some nights, after the dishes are done, the house is reset, the kids are bathed and teeth are brushed…I have just wanted to breathe in a dark room for a few minutes. But once I start playing with them, my cup overflows. And my husband, who gets less one-on-one time with them because he is the working parent, has really benefitted from having this time set apart to play with them.
I hope we are able to continue this practice, at least for the most part, past Advent. But more importantly, it has made me reflect on why it has taken so long for us to set apart this special time together more often. The busyness of life is certainly one excuse. Once nap time ends, it’s time for kid activities and afternoon commitments, dinner prep and clean-up, and getting kids ready for bed. The days fill quickly, and as parents of young kids know, the hours between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. are some of the most emotionally exhausting. Screen time allows my husband and me to catch up, both on our tasks and with each other, and give us a minute away from the demands of kids.
But I don’t view making dinner as a negotiable time of our day. The kids’ daily baths are not going anywhere, and my type-A personality is not leaving dinner cleanup until tomorrow morning. In other words, it’s not that I don’t have time, per se. I just don’t view quality play time with them as a priority; it’s just available when I have the time and energy to spend it with them. I have chosen to dedicate time to dinner, cleanup, and baths but not to non-negotiable time with my children. And while, yes, some of these tasks are just part of being people living in the world and have to get done (at some point or another, at least), we order our lives around what is most important to us—and maybe, for me, those things have historically revolved more around homemaking than parenting.
This reflection has made me reassess my dedication to other facets of my life. I have dedicated time in the morning, for example, to making breakfast and to getting myself dressed, but my time in prayer is a little more fluid. Whatever I have time for is what I give to the Lord. Given the hecticness of my life in recent months, I sense that God is glad I give Him what I can, and I often try to pause throughout my day for a quick moment with Him. But does God delight in uninterrupted quality time with me as much as my kids do? Does He eagerly look forward to our time together, particularly when He knows that I have unequivocally dedicated it to Him?
For most of us moms, particularly those with young or high-need children, our prayer lives are going to look different than they did before kids entered the picture. But how can we intentionally dedicate our lives, and particularly certain moments of it, to Him?
I am trying to work on non-negotiable moments of my day that I turn to Him, even if for a few minutes. Before my feet hit the floor, I pray a Morning Offering, offering all of my day to the Lord, even though I know I won’t remember to pray before or during each task. I have an alarm on my watch to pray the Angelus at noon. We pray whenever we get into the car (a rosary if we are going far enough), before meals, and before bed. As much as I can, I try to say a quick prayer before I pick up my phone. And most days, I try to spend at least fifteen minutes in the morning with God.
I know others who do far better than I do in their prayer time, so I am not the gold standard by any means. But what I am suggesting is that beginning to implement dedicated time to prayer, even if those prayers are brief, may be more helpful than we would imagine in creating long-term habits and in intentionally cultivating our relationship with the Lord.
If we want to have lives dedicated to God, we have to start with time dedicated to God. Telling Him that our best and worst moments, our successes and failures, our joys and our sorrows are all offered to Him is a great start. And we should pray for the grace to see how much He delights in our thoughtful time with Him.
So many tasks in our day are non-negotiables. Can we offer some to God, too?
