On Noble Leisure and Being a Smart Mommy
How and Why to Nurture Your Intellect in a Busy Life
I remember when I was pregnant for the first time, my mother and my mother in law were both sitting in the living room with me. I had been reading and taking notes from a book about the Renaissance at the time and they both looked at each other and laughed. I asked them what they were laughing at and they said, “well, you won’t really have time for that anymore soon”. I was so apprehensive when I heard that, because reading and learning are things I have always loved doing.
It has been nearly three years since that encounter, and contrary to their premonition, I have not stopped reading, writing, learning and nurturing my mind. And this has also not come at the cost of looking after my children and home diligently. It certainly took a lot of work, but I have managed to find a way to keep up these activities and this only happened when I realized how noble leisure actually helps replenish us in a way that mere entertainment never can, and in fact, this inane “entertainment” simply depletes us further.
One tends to think of the intellectual as an idle aristocrat in his big armchair by a fireplace with endless time to contemplate great books and discuss them with his friends. “I don’t have time to read” is a common phrase people say when asked if they like to read, or worse “I’m not that into reading”. This is similar to saying, “I don’t have time to workout” or “I’m not that into fitness”. Your preferences are trained habits more than they are matters of temperament. Desire itself is a habit and healthy ones can and should be cultivated. A person who does not feel joy and happiness in nurturing his intellect is sick in an equivalent way to someone who does not derive joy from moving his body and feeling the strength of his muscles, his lungs and his heart at work.
It is an interesting paradox to live in a time period when people have more access to books, blogs and educational material than ever before in human history, and yet most people feel unable to find the time or energy to take advantage of this luxury. What is worse, they often don’t even see the value in it. Many people believe that stay at home mothers are intellectually stunted individuals with heads full of cotton from spending their days on domestic chores and baby talk. I would ask such people to speak to the average working mother, or the young man or woman in a full time job, and you will find that a embarrassing number of them are just as cotton-headed as they presume the stay-at-home mothers to be.
Once the responsibilities of adulthood descend, it can be easy to be so overwhelmed by them that there seems little time left for anything else. However, there are significant steps that can be taken to mitigate the brain rot that the modern world makes it easy to indulge in. I am a mother of two little babies and I have managed to not only read a book per month since the beginning of my first pregnancy, I have also written an essay every week, have learned a new language, learned several new skills and have continued to enrich my intellectual world. My children were not an obstacle to this end, but rather the ultimate motivation and inspiration.
Simple, intentional strategies can help you nurture your intellect even in the busiest seasons of life. Read on to find out what has helped me.