My dad has this phrase in Spanish that he likes to say: “Siete oficios, catorce necesidades.” There is no equivalent in English, but it roughly translates to “seven jobs, fourteen needs” and refers to people who try to do everything. When I was a kid, my dad would always say it in reference to me because of all the activities I was constantly involved in.
And he was right.
I liked to have my hand in everything, especially when I was in high school. In many ways, I still do. Back then, our college guidance counselor drilled into me that for good schools to want me, I had to participate in every club, sport and activity that I could. Of course, I also had to be a leader in every single one. Did my extensive resume of extracurriculars actually help me get into college? Who knows. But I certainly gave it my best effort because the college application process turns everyone into a Type A.
When I became a parent, I pledged to not over-schedule my kids, and instead, let them enjoy a more unencumbered childhood.
Reader, my success has been mixed.
In my defense, my oldest daughter inherited my “please can I have one of everything” gene when it came to her interests. The youngest is not quite so eager but also lives by the FOMO drive that plagues many second children. I have found activities for both girls that I thought they might enjoy, but helping them discover something they love and not merely projecting my own ideas turned out to be a much more significant challenge than I had anticipated.
As my daughters are still only 8 and 11 years old, I’m not preoccupied with getting them into college so much as making sure they have the chance to do something they love their whole lives. The professionalization of children’s activities has always bothered me.1 But even so, I still catch myself thinking that if I don’t sign them up for something now, they will miss the opportunity to do it well enough to make it a career. Nothing says you have to love what you do for a living, and certainly you can decide what that is as an adult and change your mind about it many times (as I have), but when I hear a story of someone saying, “I remember when I first started learning [insert interesting thing here] when I was only 5 years old,” it makes me wonder.
Maybe it’s just me.
In any case, I mention all this because recently, I let my girls quit multiple activities. What surprised me the most was that when I agreed, their response was clear and utter relief. A huge flashing neon sign to me that quitting was the right thing to do for them.
Quitting used to come with feelings of guilt for me, but lately, I have tried to think of it differently. These days, I like to think of quitting as choosing yourself, choosing that feeling of relief, choosing the path of least resistance because what’s wrong with doing less if it makes you feel better? For a lot of us, quitting carries a negative connotation because on the surface, it means that we didn’t want to do the work or we didn’t want to see something through to the end. But we also gain when we quit. Choosing yourself means you elevate the part of you that needs relief. You are giving yourself something, whether it’s time or better mental health or a reminder that you are in charge of your life. For my kids, I hope they saw quitting as a way to remember their own power.
Such is their power, in fact, that I also decided to quit something: a book club. I have written about book clubs before and still enjoy the concept. This one, however, I had a hard time keeping up with, and as my to-read pile kept growing, the other still-unread books gathering dust at the bottom of it started to weigh on my conscience. I have pledged before to go a whole year without buying a book, and my waning shelf space has convinced me I needed to do that again. So no more book club for me, and no more book buying for the near future. We’ll see how that goes.
One thing I have never been able to quit is a bad book. A lot of people I know abandon books all the time. It is extremely rare for me simply because I always want to know how things end and want to believe that the author can find a way to get me where they are going. That said, I can understand the relief of deciding that you have better books to spend your time on. There is joy and freedom in realizing you are not going to read every book there is.
If you have quit something lately, my sincere congratulations. More power to you.
Book Bites
What I am reading right now: The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
What you need to know about the book: It is partly narrated by a fig tree.
What you need to know about me: I cannot resist an immigrant narrative.
What My Kids Are Reading Right Now
The Baby-sitters Club (the graphic novels) - As a kid, I read the Ann M. Martin novels that these are based on, and now both of my girls are as addicted as I was. The 8-year-old in particular right at the moment. No matter how old you are or what technology existed at the time, it seems, the travails of being a tween are universal.
Kidnapped - The 11-year-old loves mystery thrillers, a trait she did not get from me.
On the Horizon
Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond
I may have quit one book club, but my office one is going strong. These are our chosen reads for the year, and I can’t wait to dive into them both.
Mother’s Day Recommendation
The Three Mothers by Anna Malaika Tubbs is as powerful an ode to motherhood as you will find. Buy it for the mother in your life looking to feel inspired.
Here’s the review I wrote when I finished the audiobook last year:
I learned so much listening to this book, about the mothers of three of the most influential men of the Civil Rights movement and the 20th century as a whole. It is well researched, thought-provoking, moving and the perfect encapsulation of how much we learn about ourselves and our country when we center the stories of black women. On the surface, the book teaches us about MLK Jr., Malcolm X and James Baldwin by providing insight into how their upbringings and family backgrounds influenced these men. But there's so much more here about feminism and history and the long reach of white supremacy and systemic racism, beyond the individual to the family, the community and the country as a whole.
The author's own passion and personal connection to her work comes through even as she conveys the spirit and voice of each of her subjects, who found ways to thrive in a world not built to allow them to do so. Most importantly, she dismantles the notion that hardship helped push these men into greatness by offering a window into the joy their mothers fought to give them. Love, not oppression, was the driving force for them, their families and their movement.
High school athletes tearing their ACLs or needing Tommy John surgery happens because they have done only one thing for too many years.