Every mom I know has said it at least once, probably while changing out clothes for the upcoming season and realizing how big the next size looks all of a sudden, “I just wish time would slow down.” I know that feeling. The baby years somehow crawl and fly at the same time, and then you blink and you’re drowning in homework, juggling practices, and wondering when your child’s shoes got bigger than yours.
But here’s the thing: time didn’t speed up. We did.
Somewhere along the way, “good parenting” got tangled up with “busy parenting.” We adopted the mindset that the more activities, the better. Soccer, piano, art, tumbling, chess club – we’re told it’s all part of raising “well-rounded kids.” But when I look around, I see exhausted moms who verify that suspicion when I ask how they’re doing. Maybe we justify the exhausted feeling and vow to push through, holding on to the illusion that this is just a busy phase of life and it will slow down soon. But what many moms don’t realize is that our kids are learning how to become exhausted adults through our daily example. I’ve never known a mom to have that goal for her kids.
It usually starts innocently enough. One activity leads to another, and before you know it, your calendar is running the show instead of you. Then you find yourself eating dinner in the car again, or realizing you haven’t had a slow Saturday in months. One day, your kids are melting down or acting out because they’vebeen rushed from one thing to the next, and you’re wondering how your family got to this place.
It’s our full calendars that make time feel like it’s slipping through our fingers faster and faster. Our days are so full of good things that we accidentally crowd out the best things. If we want life to slow down, we have to start asking,“What means the most to our family right now?” That’s not a rhetorical question; I really mean sit down and make a list. If family dinners are important, protect that time. Don’t fill those evening hours with driving across town or eating nuggets in the minivan. If you want your weekends to include time outside together, keep one weekend day free. You can’t protect what you don’t identify as a priority.
And while we’re talking about being intentional, let’s also talk about presence. Because even if your schedule is light, it’s easy to spend the small windows of time you do have scrolling through your phone, answering one more message, or having half-conversations while your kid tells you about their LEGO spaceship. I have been guilty of this more often than I care to admit. Here’s some encouragement, though: Kids don’t need four hours of our attention every day. They can thrive on thirty minutes of our full attention if that’s all we have, but those 30 minutes need to have the kind of attention where we’re not multitasking, not scrolling, and not half-listening while mentally adding “pick up more bread” to our to-do list. Be intentional with the small pockets of time you have. Turn down the distractions. Make eye contact. Put the phone down. Yes, even if you’rejust trying to find that recipe that you’re sure you saved last week.
You can’t slow down time, but you can slow your pace. You can choose an evening at home over another extracurricular. You can choose to eat dinner at an actual table instead of in the car. You can choose to be fully present for five minutes instead of half-present for fifty. Because at the end of the day, our kids won’t remember the perfect calendar or the number of activities they were involved in. They’ll remember the feeling of belonging, the connection with their family, the steadfast presence of a parent who showed up, no matter what.
The passing of time is bittersweet. Don’t add regrets to that bittersweet feeling. Time will keep moving, kids will keep growing, and the seasons will keep changing. The next time you’re swapping out clothes and holding up those jeans that look entirely too big for your baby, take a breath. Time won’t slow down, but you can. And when you do, you just might find that slowing your pace lets you savor the very moments you were trying so hard to hold onto.
Becky is a wife, mom of four boys, nurse, and Functional Health Practitioner who’s passionate about helping women feel like themselves again. After spending over a decade in women’s health, it was her own journey through motherhood that highlighted the gaps in our healthcare system.
Now, she applies her medical knowledge through a functional medicine lens to uncover the root causes of symptoms and help women move from surviving to thriving. Becky is the founder of Rooted and Restored Functional Health, where she walks with moms looking for real answers and lasting wellness. Learn more at www.rootedandrestoredhealth.com
