One of the best pieces of advice I ever got about raising my daughter was from the director of her preschool, Arlene Wright. My four year old daughter was asking to take a dance class. The only time she could attend was on Saturday mornings. Since she was already in preschool five days a week from 7:45 a.m. til 4:30 or 5:00, I was hesitant to schedule anything for her on Sat. I asked Arlene what she thought about it. She flat out said, “It’s too much.”

 Arlene’s opinion, which I respected, was that our children need more “down time” than most of them are getting. She thought it was very important to save those two days a week for sleeping in, enjoying a leisurely breakfast and having some unstructured time to be spontaneous. I agreed. Many years later I do not regret that decision.

We all know kids who have activities scheduled out the wazoo. Some of them wouldn’t have a clue what to do with an hour of unstructured time. What really astounds me is that the parents of these kids seem to have no life at all. All they ever seem to do is shuttle their kids from games to activities to lessons every week of every season the entire year.

One guy I got talking to somewhere was going on and on (almost with pride!) about how many games/activities, etc. he and his wife were juggling between their three kids. Since I happen to think this is nuts, I asked, “why don’t you cut back on this stuff a little, say no, have some family time?” He looked at me in shock and said, “Well, that would be really selfish”. God, I hope he was being sarcastic!

Can someone out there please tell me what’s wrong with this picture? To me, it’s lopsided on so many levels I’m at a loss as to where to start. Or maybe someone who thinks this is a great idea can tell me what I’m missing here. That might work too. I just don’t get it. And I certainly wouldn’t want to be in that marriage!  

Pros and cons? Okay, just pros.

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