Just Too Busy: Taking Your Family On A Radical Sabbatical By Joanne Kraft
Reviewed by: Lara Van Hulzen, Radiant Lit
Genre: Parenting
Publisher: Beacon Hill Press

As parents, we tend to want to give our kids the things they want. We want to make life easy for them and give them the opportunity to be involved in every activity that is available to them. But we have become a society that is mastered by busyness. As moms, we’ve become zombies driving a mini-van shuttle all day and tossing fast food burgers back to our frazzled, tired children. And we’ve come to believe that this is the accepted way to live – it’s simply just “the way it is.”

While talking with a friend one day, playing the game “busy-mom poker – I’ll see your basketball practices on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights and raise you a 6:30 a.m. bus drop-off time,” author Joanne Kraft realized that busyness had taken hold of her family and was wrestling them to the ground.  She and her husband decided to take a “radical sabbatical.” For one year, their family said “no” to any organized activities. For her four children, this meant no baseball, music lessons, and no soccer. They planned a monthly field trip as a family where each member of the family got to choose where they would go and what they would do as a family that day.

Although her children were shocked at first, the family began to see the advantages to having a less busy schedule and more time together. Instead of ships passing in the night, they had time to sit down to dinner, have family movie night, and learn that quality is more important than quantity. Her oldest daughter even wrote her a letter after going to college saying how much that year had taught her about what is truly important in life.

Busyness and distractions are addicting, leaving us no time for prayer and quality time for our loved ones. “Busyness is a part of Satan’s three-step plan. He uses it as a weapon to steal our time, kill our joy, and destroy our relationships.”

Nowhere in the bible do the words “parent” and “friend” show up together. We are meant to parent our children, which does not mean giving them everything they want, or making sure they are involved in every activity available.

This book is a must read for every family. I know no one who is exempt from this problem. Maybe it’s time we all considered a “radical sabbatical.”

Rating – G

Review copy purchased by reviewer.