Life has been going slowly, recently.
I say this usually with frustration. That I am not getting enough done, or things done quickly enough, but when I am with the kids, slowly is how everything is done and I am finally making peace with that. In fact I am beginning to enjoy it.
Being a mother and being around my children so much has taught me truly valuable things. Things that I had forgotten in my work and in this fast-pace digital life we are all living.
But in September, when my eldest goes to school and my youngest will be able to go into nursery full-time, my world is going to speed up again. I am going to miss the slower-paced life. Here are the things I have enjoyed in going at a child’s pace.
Taking Time to Look
We have been travelling at a child’s pace for a while now, since I stopped using the double buggy a few months ago. Efforts to get my son to practice walking for longer has meant walking anywhere is almost like a guided tour. I grasp at anything that I think might distract him from his aching legs, tired after a trip down to the high street. I point out interesting vehicles, plants, animals, clouds in the sky - absolutely anything to get us walking a little bit further - to stave off the next tantrum. But in doing so we have seen so much and a walk even to the bus stop on the main road can open up discussions about plants and animals we wouldn’t have had if I had been power walking with them both in the buggy. I’ve paid more attention to people’s gardens and been motivated to make our own balcony look a little nicer - armed with knowledge of the plants we have discovered on our walks. We have taken time to look and we have seen.
Valuing Baby Steps
It is in teaching the children skills that I have seen the fruits of my labour and theirs in terms of putting a little bit of effort in each day. Much like walking a little farther each day, steps are made to improve toilet training. Now my four-year-old is going to the toilet by himself - even flushing it and washing his own hands. It is so new it is still a shock hearing the toilet flush on the floor above me. I feel like it has all happened so quickly, but really the incremental steps have all been there. He was potty trained last February and it is only now he is becoming independent. He has got there bit by bit.
Strangely, though, this isn’t the way we see teaching ourselves or doing things ourselves in adulthood. Baby steps are for babies. And yet productivity, especially for the time poor, can be achieved through doing a little bit each day. Listening to Lucy Jones on Emma Gannon’s podcast, Creative Coffee, I was pleased to hear her say that even writing a sentence a day was something. Every little thing helps to push a project forward. This realisation is really valuable and is evident to me even more so now I have had children.
I think Instagram with its fast-paced work in progress videos, show us unrealistic levels of productivity and glosses over many of the essential steps in achieving something bigger. I see it myself in designer’s videos - how they make the logo in moving a few points on the screen, making it look effortless. But I know it is in the slow-going developmental phases - the crafting and problem solving - that’s the bit I find joy and that is also where the skill is. Maybe that is much like this parenting stage too.
Having Time for Others
On our walks, down to the high street, especially, we encounter many people. In this slower life of walking the streets while most people are at work, perhaps it is inevitable that we will meet and mingle with many retired folk, who are also trying to embrace a slower life.
Having the time means we can connect and talk to people we would otherwise just walk past. When we often see the same people, too, it is nice to say Hi, catch up and feel a little bit more part of the community we have found ourselves in.
In shops my son makes conversation with charity shop volunteers. Once one man was telling my son, who was wanting to buy a toy car, how he remembers how his mum used to take him to buy a car in a matchbox each week when he was a boy.
On the bus my son sits apart from me as I stand with the buggy and he often gets chatting to strangers. A toy he is holding might inspire a story or conversation amongst others. I once heard a man talk to the lady next to him about how the fire truck my son was holding was similar to one he had as a child. The warmth that radiates from people as they delve into fond memories is a privilege to bask in. We may have only been going down to the high street for a cup of tea, but we have made connections and inspired conversation that have lasted long after we have gone.
Learning Patience and Self-Compassion
In walking literally more slowly down the high street I have had to learn to be more patient. We stop regularly. We talk more, I am more aware of how my son is feeling and what his wishes are. Everything takes a little longer, but in my mind as long as we go where we need to go, it doesn’t really matter if we are late - it doesn’t matter how long it takes. We don’t go far.
I don’t think of myself as patient, and some days I am less so. Sometimes I whine and bargain with him as he moves at a snail’s pace, but when we encounter someone who we may let pass or go ahead of us onto the bus, I will say “we have all the time in the world” because really we do. It’s been nice not to rush and as someone who has been the rushed one - desperate to make the nursery pick up on time or to get to the office for a meeting, I know what it is like to be that person too. I have learned to be more compassionate of these different roles we take up in life and at the minute I am enjoying the slower pace.
In thinking about the things I will miss about our life now, I wonder if it is possible to take these things with us, once life speeds up again. Will I continue to be self-compassionate when navigating the nursery drop off? Will I still be stressed and frustrated with people walking slowly ahead of me? Will I be able to take time to enjoy my surroundings and interrogate the things we walk past with a child’s eye? Will I make time for strangers?
I don’t know if this experience being with my children so much will have changed me at all or if I will just slip back into my old self, but it has been a privilege to see those baby steps - to experience those connections with them and to learn just as much from being with them as they have learned from me.
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Does time move slowly or quickly for you at the moment?
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Thank you for this lovely piece! I love the one sentence a day. I started the #1000wordsofsummer challenge with great intentions and did not stick with it which made me feel guilty about my lack of writing and posting. Hearing “even one sentence a day is progress” was just what I needed.
I remember when my oldest would no longer go in the double buggy (started at 2!) and my fast paces Forrest walks for some exercise became non existent. It was hard at first, but like you I discovered the joy of finding beautiful fallen leaves and a wonderfully shaped stick or rock. When we can slow down and stop fighting against the slooooowww current, life gets a lot easier!