Creating and Preserving Life Margins

In my closet, I have a box of old letters from my middle and high school years. They are intricately folded and full of the silly ramblings of girlfriends and the awkward advances of a boy or two. Every square inch of these letters is filled, making them difficult to read. Sentences twist, curl and crowd into the margins along with stickers, song lyrics and doodles.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to let our adult lives look like the crowded pages of our childhood letters–with not a scrap of white space to be had.

It can be particularly tempting for homeschoolers to fill up the empty spaces in our days. We feel like we have more time, so we should be doing more. We want to participate in every worthy endeavor, to squeeze the last drop out of every learning opportunity.

Yet I know something now that I didn’t know back when my girlfriends and I were writing those cluttered letters. Clean margins are essential to making a legible document, and also to creating a nurturing home life.

We need unhurried free time built into our family lives in order to foster true connection.

We need margins in our schooling–unhindered time to wonder and explore and ask. That time gives our young learners the space to span the gap between book knowledge and real, internalized understanding.

Photo by Stefani Austin

But in a society that values living all the way to the edge of the page, how do we create and preserve those margins for ourselves and our children?

The key is understanding that all good margins are made up of two elements: clearly defined boundaries and thoughtful editing.

Creating life margins is a balancing act of holding tightly to some things and being willing to let others slip through our fingers. Leaving some white space in our family’s daily life and in our home learning environment has meant deciding what is important to us and protecting those things fiercely.

Here are some of the margins that our family holds dear.

Family Meals

No matter where the world takes us, the dinner table is our anchor. We will be gathered around it at 6:30, “come hell or high water” as my great grandmother would say.

This has meant letting go of some sports and other wonderful but all-consuming activities that would have prevented us from having regular family meals.

Photo by Stefani Austin

Sometimes having daily family meals means that I have to let go of my perfect homemaker vision and take short cuts. I use the crock pot a lot. I freeze meals on the weekends. I do what it takes to make meals unhurried, stress-free and ready when we need them.

Gathering

We make time for sleepovers with the cousins, afternoons with Nana and tinkering with Grandfather. We set aside money in our budget for monthly road trips to visit my grandmother in the spring and summer.

We believe that each time we make a small sacrifice for family, we’re speaking to the men our boys will become. We’re telling them that no matter what their future holds, family should always come first.

Photo by Stefani Austin

Free Time

Fridays in our house are for learning outside of the books and living beyond the to-do list. There is no formal school for us on these days, but we learn so much in them anyhow. We hike, play, read, bake and work on projects together.

The temptation of course is to use that time to grocery shop or clean, make doctors appointments or catch up on bills, but we don’t do those things on Fridays. Fridays are free space.

Faith

We always schedule our travels so that Sunday finds us in our regular seats at church. Is it tempting to sleep in or spend the day at the lake? Not really. We need those Sunday mornings to see our friends, worship and grow in our faith. By the end of the week we’re sometimes feeling a bit poured out.

Sunday mornings fill us up and leave us inspired. We don’t let anything get in the way of that.

Tradition

There are the big ones, of course–the ways we celebrate Christmas and Easter, but we work hard to preserve smaller traditions too. We have “fancy Sunday dinner” and weekly family game nights. We visit the same berry patch every year. We plant a garden each spring.

These predictable, dependable family times are comforting and more important than any of the things we give up to make them possible. They are the clean white space in the clutter and busyness of daily life.

Photo by Stefani Austin

I believe that when the story of my time with my children is written, it will be the margins that tell the dearest tales.

How about you? What margins do you hold dear and how do you protect them?