The Kids Are up Past Seven and Other Tales of Recalibration
By Molly Flinkman
@molly_flinkman
1
Seven o’clock bedtime was a cornerstone of our family life for a decade.
It was born out of necessity, really—back when we only had a toddler and a baby in our home. One night, in the early days of my husband Jake’s medical residency, I kept those two little girls awake, so they could see him after one of his hospital shifts ended at 7:00 p.m. I hadn’t yet learned that shifts never end on time though, so I sat there with our daughters as the sunlight changed from gold to deep blue. I watched the minutes tick by on my watch for almost an hour and realized I had been awake with those children by myself for over thirteen hours.
I cannot do this every day, I remember thinking. We needed a routine. I needed a reliable end of day.
And so, the era of 7:00 p.m. bedtime began. It provided me sanity on the days when Jake worked sixteen hours and also on the days when he didn’t because early bedtimes gave us time to connect once everyone was asleep. We loved spending our days with our kids, and we loved when they went to bed.
And then, as kids do, they got older. And when they got older, they lobbied to stay up later.
They made some compelling arguments (the best of which included a promise of quiet reading). Plus, they can mostly hang past sunset now without fully melting down and no longer require constant supervision. So, we have loosened the grip a bit and 7:00 p.m. has turned into 7:30 p.m. which has turned into 8:00 p.m. which sometimes even turns into 8:30 p.m. or later.
They’re just kind of around in the evenings now—more fully in our space and our time. They want to play cards and games and rollerblade in the driveway after dark.
Mostly I don’t mind it. But also? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I still put them to bed at 7:00 p.m. for my own sanity. Sometimes I opt out of the family game and read my book on the couch instead. Also, yes, I asked Jake to put a television in our bedroom because someday soon they’re going to be awake until 10:00 p.m. or later, and I want to be able to watch Severance in peace when that day comes.
I’m still getting used to the whole arrangement, is what I’m trying to say. I’m still working to embrace this new normal.
2
We sent our youngest kid to all-day kindergarten in August, and the question came immediately: What do you do all day while the kids are at school?
I spent ten years at home full-time with our kids, and back then, I didn’t need to explain how I used my time. People heard “I stay home with our kids” and didn’t usually ask any further questions. “Oh, that’s great,” they would say, and that was that. They didn’t think to ask about what kinds of crafts kept us busy or which park we liked best. They didn’t seem to wonder how those hours filled up.
Now when people ask what I do though, I sense a bit more intrigue. I drop our four kids off at school in the morning and then seven hours pass before I see them again. What do you do all day by yourself? They wonder. How do you use all that time?
Prove you’re doing something worthwhile, is how I tend to hear it.
So I begin to think about my days as though I need to demonstrate my own effectiveness—as though I need to provide receipts in order to validate my choices.
Load of laundry: Check.
Meals planned: Check.
Groceries ordered and picked up: Check.
Three more loads of laundry: Check.
Sign reading logs: Check.
My daughter was frantic about those reading logs a few months ago.
“We are supposed to read forty books by the end of the year!” she cried. “I’m so far behind!” It was just before bedtime when every problem triples in size.
“I don’t care if you read forty books this year,” I told her. We talked about the reasons we read and the importance of reading carefully and thoughtfully. I made sure she knew that it doesn’t matter how many books she reads. It matters that she reads them well.
“You can still be a great reader even if you only read five books this year,” I said. “Just do your very best every single day.” And just like that, we erased the line she had drawn between her work and her worth. Just like that, I was reminded how easy it is to draw that line in the first place.
Maybe you are still wondering what exactly I do all day, so I’ll tell you:
I do the best I can. (At least, that’s what I’m inching toward.)
3
It is after 5:00 p.m. when we pull into the restaurant parking lot, and three of our four kids are already losing it—whining and moaning like they haven’t eaten all day. They are really sent over the edge when Jake comes back to the van to report a 45-minute wait for a table. He drives the car around the building a few times hoping the motion might soothe them the way it did when they were babies. (It doesn’t.)
“Do you think you can pull it together?” I ask.
“Why is it such a long wait?” one kid cries.
“How much longer?” another asks.
“Maybe we should just go home,” I say to Jake.
Jake turns the car onto the main road.
“No!” One kid comes out of the upside down long enough to say she doesn’t want to go home. She wants to go to the restaurant.
I look over at Jake. “Let’s try it,” I say. “They can rally.”
So, we play it fast and loose with a van full of kids teetering on the edge of various meltdowns. We park and walk inside to wait. Jake gets them each a chocolate milk from the bar, and two of them come back to us. It takes a bit longer, but the fourth comes around too once we sit down and get some french fries in his belly.
By the end of dinner, everyone is back—smiling, laughing, and fully engaged.
“Tell us a true story, Dad,” they beg as they often do after dinner. Jake tells them the one about the time our friend swore he could eat an entire Denny’s pie in college (he couldn’t) and also the one about the time he and his brother found a six-foot long black bull snake in the middle of a Kansas highway. We linger at the table, even after the bill is paid. We take our time; we savor the moment.
An hour earlier, I wasn’t sure the evening would end well, but here we are. The kids can rally. They can adjust.
Eventually, we have to put a stopper on the night. We put our coats on, and the wind slaps at our faces while we walk to the van.
We’re getting better at this, I think. We’re getting better at all of this.
Molly Flinkman is a freelance writer from central Iowa where she lives with her husband, Jake, and their four kids. A lover of houseplants, good books, and (in a surprising turn of events) bright colors, she loves to write about how her faith intersects the very ordinary aspects of her life and hopes her words will encourage and support other women along the way. You can connect with Molly on Instagram, through her monthly newsletter, Twenty Somethings, or on her Substack, Common Stories.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.