How did you spend your weekends as a child? Mine always started with homemade pizza on a Friday night. I could smell and hear the bread machine kneading when I got home from school.

When it was warm enough, my family went hiking on Saturday mornings. Once a month, my dad would get up before the rest of us and get a breakfast treat—either bagels (my favorite) or donuts (my sister’s favorite)—before we left for the park.

In the afternoons, we’d watch a movie (usually A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2 or The Secret Garden) while my parents worked on home projects. Sometimes we would go to a friend’s house for dinner or host a family at ours, sometimes not.

Sunday morning was either pancakes (my favorite) or waffles (my sister’s favorite) with bacon. Sunday mornings were deliciously unscheduled. My sister and I would usually play American Girl dolls while my parents relaxed in their pajamas with coffee. After lunch it was time for homework, and my mom baked a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for snacks and lunchbox treats. We often ate Sunday dinners in the dining room and were expected to try any new foods that made their way onto our picky plates.

And so my childhood went by: one slow, predictable weekend after another. After we went back to school, crisp, sunny fall afternoons slowly gave way to wet, icy November ones, and then sparkling but frigid January days later. The smell of mud heralded the warm weather, and then it was summer again. And I grew up.

Modern parenting has higher expectations for me.

I wonder—did my parents feel bored and uninteresting in this routine? Did they feel pressure to be more, do more, entertain us more?

As an adult, I decidedly dislike full weekends. After fully planned weekends, I need a weekend from my weekend… and from my kids’ behavior, they do, too. I try to protect our free time, spacing out social gatherings and playdates so we’re not running from place to place. I try to leave hours for unstructured play, walks, cooking, gardening.

Yet sometimes I also feel like I am doing my kids a disservice. Will they turn 12 and wish they were elite athletes, that they had spent their weekends traveling to faraway soccer games instead of making mud pies in the backyard? Will they wish we had gone to church more consistently instead of walking in the woods on many Sundays? Will they wish I had bought a TV and shown them the kids’ movies du jour so that they know pop culture? Maybe they’ll wish that I, their mom, had spent more time ingraining myself in our suburban community for their social benefit?

To choose uninteresting weekends in this day and age feels counterculture in its own right, and no choice is without its costs. I’m probably not raising DI baseball players or professional pianists this way.

But even with some fears, I want my kids to want less for themselves and their lives. Fewer but more meaningful outings and get-togethers, fewer but closer friends, less but more engaging entertainment. My parents, in my opinion, did everything right during our elementary school weekends, keeping stimulation low and life predictable. Those weekends influenced how I live my life now and created an ability to be happy with simple things, even to strive for simplicity. In the broadest sense, how could I want more for them than that?

xx Claire