I will not spend my son’s last few years at home preparing for the future.

I just won’t.

I will spend it in this moment...soaking him up.

I will spend it getting to know him more before he launches.

I will spend it laughing, loving and laying.

I will spend it playing video games with him and ordering pizza late at night.

Sure we will discuss the future...but you can bet he won’t be in classes at age 15 preparing for his SAT or ACT.

Neither was I.

He won’t be spending his summer with a special tutor I hired, in sports tournaments every weekend or committing every moment to learning something.

It’s just not who we are.

We soak up the moment in our family.
We look each other in the eyes in my family.
We know what each laugh and each snarl means.

We argue, we rest, we get annoyed, we sometimes say things we don’t mean.

When it’s over...we are there...unconditionally – to talk about it and to move forward.

We teach conflict resolution skills in my family.
We do forced family hikes in my family.

We talk about what you ARE instead of what you AREN’T in my family.

We won’t spend his last summers staying clean.

We will get dirty and forget to take a shower before bedtime.

We will lay in our beds covered in sunscreen from the day.

It’s okay...it’s gonna be okay.

In our family...we watch for ready. We don’t push into ready. We don’t assume you “should” be ready...we watch and wait for ready.

We won’t spend our last summers focused on mistakes from his past two years of high school.

Nope...that’s not who we are.

We spend a whole lot of time doing nothing in our family...and we do it together.

We won’t schedule all their free time.
We won’t fill their days so they don’t get bored.
We won’t ensure they are learning and growing every minute...that way they can learn and grow.

We won’t listen to today’s society and fill their heads with “should’s and must’s”.

We will let them roam like it’s 1975.

Ride their bike till it’s dark and skip dinner.

We will live like hippies this summer, lest they forget where they came from.

In our family, we live life.

We spend a moment...in the moment. We don’t wish for yesterday or fill every moment preparing for tomorrow.

We live for today.

For this moment.

For this age.

For this life.

We won’t live according to the new rules of society, preparing for every move and filling every free minute so we can parent less and train more.

No, we consider ourselves more like hippies, our family.

We train them how to love each other even when they don’t feel like loving.

We talk about what problems they want to solve instead of what they want to be when they grow up.

We discuss our world views and learn about other cultures.

At times...I can feel it.

The pressure of society bearing down on us.

My son feels it too.

I remind him...we are right here...in this moment...don’t waste it my love.

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