It is the first day of fall next week. I appreciate each season for its own sake, but am partial to summer and, since I am predisposed to hate the cold from a lifetime in northern Michigan, fall brings a foreboding feeling to me of cold and dark days ahead. But today, it still feels like summer here in Tennessee, so I will ground myself in the present and resist the temptation of dreading what has not yet come to pass.

And, since I know this is a busy season for you moms, I’m going to get quickly to my point for this month in this series of blogs about our use of time. My thoughts were prompted as I read through Ecclesiastes last week, a book that has an immense amount of wisdom about our use of time, as a matter of fact:

3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
² a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
⁷ a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

Have I mentioned how preoccupied we mothers and teachers are with time? I have mentioned it?—indeed I have, a number of times. We are always trying to manage the beast in our life called Time—trying to control it, hold on to it, use it. Time relentlessly marches on, like the seasons we cannot hold on to, summer does turn to fall, which does bring that cold whether I like it or not. The lawn furniture does need to be put away, the mosquito repellant, the bathing suits.

As soon as we give birth to a child, someone, many someones, are certainly going to predict how fast the time will fly (though as we lose an average of 700 hours of sleep in the first year with a newborn, that year seems endless!) No one disputes the fact that children grow up swiftly. I believe another person has said that the first eight years seems about 30 years long, and the next ten about eight seconds. Such is the perspective warp we have as their parents. 

Somehow, however, we have difficulty absorbing these truths. We are slow to change with their changes. The nature of family is that it is constantly moving, forming and reforming its patterns and dynamics. A family is living and growing, which means it is ever changing. 

Yet, we are always trying to get a grip on the present, attempting to master and regulate and stabilize things to keep law and order, peace and contentment. We make our chore lists. We organize the curriculum. We plan our meals and carpool and activity schedules. Still, somehow, we regularly feel out of sync, off balance, and are faced with having to reorganize again. 

At first we are relieved that we can get babies and toddlers into the right car seats, but they keep growing out of them, and before we know it they can buckle themselves in. We arrange the rooms to keep things out of reach, next providing stools so they can reach, and then, before we know it,  are asking them to hand us things that are out of our reach. We walk the floors to get them to sleep, teach them to read the clock to know when it is time to sleep, and next are begging them to go to sleep long after we have gone to bed ourselves. No two years in a family look the same. Children constantly outgrow their clothing, toys, and interests. We train the oldest to take out the trash and clean their room and turn around and realize the youngest hasn’t been trained to do those same things at the same age. We can’t keep up with the shifts of attention, ability, and aptitude.  

I am definitely not saying, give up and don’t try to maintain order. I am saying, look ahead a little and realize that the beautiful schedule and plans you have today will not work in six months or a year. Part of what we have to manage with time is that these rapidly growing persons in our house are moving on whether we like it or not. Your twelve-year-old will not like reading the bedtime stories he did at six, your 15-year-old is no longer finding pleasure in the same hobbies and sports she was at nine. Though your days seem long and full and you are valiantly attempting to keep a semblance of sanity, don’t work at maintaining last year’s wonderful system forever. Just as the matchbox cars replaced the rattles, the car keys replaced the tricycle, be ready for the oncoming seasons.  

Enjoy the moment, but don’t try to preserve it when the new season comes. Above all, don’t pretend a new season has arrived or will not come along—sooner than you like.