Free time

I heard a quote today and I couldn't get it out of my mind.

"What we do with our free time reflects the values of our society."

As a young mother on the journey of raising little children, I'm often faced with the question of, "What is my free time? When do I have time for me? How much time do I spend on myself and how much time do I spend on my children each day?

I don't really know the answer to all these questions, except what my heart tells me to do each day. When I wake up and see my little ones next to me, I know that they are really my reason for being right now, and I'll figure the rest out throughout the day.
I can't help but turn to them and want to be with them.

There are so many distractions in our world today which could so easily take me away from my kids. When I stare at this computer screen, I am instantly sucked into a world where I don't have to face responsibility. Suddenly the dishes, the laundry, the needy children, can fade away in the background. It's a dangerous line to cross for many people. There are so many times in the day where I could easily slip into this chair and keep telling my kids "5 more minutes, 5 more minutes..." Until suddenly all they remember from their childhood is a mother on a chair, looking at a screen.

I always like to remind myself that one of Satans (that evil guy who wants us to be unhappy) biggest lies is that women can have it all. We are in the "me" generation, where opportunity is at our fingertips! We can have a career, raise children, get an education, be in perfect shape, have everything material we need, and still have time to do the things we love to do. I say, this is a big fat lie, and if we tried to be this generations women, our families would suffer, and us, too. No, we can't have it all. But we sure can try to be the best mothers we can be, and that is more important than anything else.

There are so many things that could take up our free time.
What do we do with our free time?
As I thought about this quote I realized that my free time doesn't really exist. Free time to me are those small spurts of time that I find throughout the day. A quiet moment to pray and mediate while the kids are napping, a burst of energy to run up the hill with little ones in the stroller, a quick chapter in a book while I'm watching a child bathe, a few moments to relax while I'm nursing a baby.

All these things just add up and make me a mother.

"What we do with our free time reflects the values of our society."

I know I am still learning to put my values in the right place. However, I just wanted to say that I value being a mother over anything else in the whole world. And I know that society doesn't always appreciate this, but it's the truth.