I have struggled with this series. It came to me in a flurry of thoughts, a tidy little group of essays that would neatly tie up all of my tips and tricks and bits of wisdom in useful and pretty little packages. The first post touched on the physical tools I use that calm my nervous system so that I can access slower living, and the second examined my family’s food choices and habits. This third essay has proven to be… anxiety inducing. After much stalling and ruminating, I think the root of this anxiety is a fear of judgement. I am afraid that the internet will judge me, or I will turn people off and they will unsubscribe. I am afraid that what I have to say will somehow puncture your illusions of me. You will find me to be an imposter.
My goodness, the acrobatics the brain will engage in to try to keep us safe! By not sharing the most personal of details in my writing, I keep myself protected from the judgement of others. By playing small, I can avoid the rawness of exposure and let the tender bits remain safe. But it is in the dark that those protected bits can also wither away, never allowed to take root and flourish the way they might, if offered even the narrowest streak of sunshine.
So, deep breath. Let me hold up the choices I have made and invite the scrutiny. And let me share about the elephant in the room, at long last.
Life Choices
There’s three primary life choices I made, one of which is still very much a work in progress. These are the choices that allow the slower, simpler lifestyle that so many of us crave. The first might be the most polarizing, but it was certainly the simplest and most impactful choice I have made on this journey.
Living Alcohol Free
I descend from multiple ancestral lines that have been deeply scarred by the ravages of alcoholism. Growing up, I always swore I would never fall into its clutches. What’s that old saying, “You plan, God laughs?” Once I reached my early twenties, I discovered the delights of wine. I studied it, reveling in the sophisticated academic aura I thought I had achieved by seeking out and receiving various professional certifications. I loved wine. I found a way to make a living writing about wine, selling wine, sharing wine. It became a core part of my identity.
That all shifted for me once I got older and started having children. My body couldn’t keep up with the demands of babies and a home and a career while also detoxing from the nightly rosé. While I believe I escaped the darkest clutches of alcoholism, the daily calculating of just how much wine I would allow myself to drink or not drink consumed far too much mental energy. Holly Whitaker’s pivotal book, Quit Like a Woman, entered my life at precisely the right moment. It was only a few pages in when she shares the scientific evidence that alcohol, even just a single glass of it, can disrupt the sleep cycle for four to five days. That means even if drinking is restricted to one or two days a week (the weekend, for instance), it can and will prevent a full restorative sleep for the entire week! As a parent of young children, I hardly need to tell you how precious sleep is in our house.
It has been over three years now since I gave up all alcohol, and my life (and my sleep!) is immeasurably better. It is as if I have finally woken from a slightly blurry dream, and everything is now in crystal clear technicolor. I have the ability to be intentional about my daily life, and all the hard bits are absolutely easier. I believe becoming alcohol-free is one cornerstone of my self nurturing practice.
Prioritizing Self-Nurturing
I have long leaned on the term self nurturing instead of self care. To nurture means to do more than just the bare minimum to keep something alive. It means more than a mom’s night out or a bubble bath. Self nurturing means discovering the practices and commitments that allow my life to flourish, to help me feel both grounded and free. It means to prioritize my personal thriving, not just my survival.
This is what I struggle with the most. Once I made the decision to go alcohol free, I never had to make that decision again. But deciding to prioritize my own emotional and physical health? That’s sometimes dozens of decisions a day! Should I eat my kids leftover pancakes to save time, money, and food? Or, should I make myself a proper meal that has more of the protein I need? Should I pull out the watercolors because my nervous system is totally wrecked? Or, should I proceed with our planned morning of academic lessons and laundry? What will make me feel guilty? What will put me too far behind on chores that I will feel overwhelmed later? Am I drinking too much tea and coffee, or maybe not enough?
When everything swirls around like this, I know my best option is actually none of these. It is to go sit on the bathroom floor for five minutes and do a little emergency mediation. Just five minutes to bring myself back down to a calm and regulated state is often all I need to see the answer in perfect clarity. Of course, sometimes those five minutes have to wait, because if the children are also dysregulated, then they will seek me out for instinctive co-regulation. (If you are currently a parent to very young children, I want to assure you that this does get better as they age. They can tolerate your brief absences when home with you more, but I know those years can feel endless!)
Five minutes sounded like a downright luxury in my early motherhood, and now it is the bare minimum I seek every day. It is helpful to tell the children what I am doing when I disappear, and how important it is to me being the best mama I can be. I make sure also to teach them their own meditation and mindfulness techniques, as well as embody the practices as an example. As our primary learning takes place at home, this is usually quite simple to fit into our day.
Homeschooling & Limited Structured Activities Outside the Home
Most of you already know this, but I homeschool my children. The problems I have with the American / western school system are myriad and complex, and probably merit an essay of their own. Essentially, I believe children learn and thrive better when they are in environments not borne of capitalist structures. I believe in play, and being outside, and that when children who are allowed to follow their interests will learn a thousand times better than children who are forced into dull worksheets every day.
Because we do not have to rush off to school every day, dealing with the shouts to get shoes on and bags packed; because we don’t have the daily backlash of exhaustion that many children get from masking all day long in school; because we limit the hustle and bustle that is generated from the absurd amount of extra-curricular activities that is standard here in the United States — we are able to have much slower days. My children wake when is natural for their bodies, and they have dozens of opportunities to play and let their imaginations take flight. Our house is drowning in books, and you can usually find them poring over a stack at least once in a given day. We have an art center in our dining room where they can create all sorts of projects whenever they are moved. We do daily math, language arts, science, history, social-emotional skills, and German, from curricula that work best for their way they actually learn. We bake all of our own bread. We take long walks in nature. It is downright beautiful.
The Elephant in the Room
This beauty, it comes at a cost. I think of it as a hundred thousand dollar a year cost. This isn’t money we pay for the privilege of homeschooling, its the amount of money I theoretically could be making if I didn't spend my days at home with my children. (Though this number would likely be far less, as marketing and PR agency salaries have decidedly not risen commensurate with inflation, and the increased availability of AI has made decently paying freelance copywriting jobs scarce (though I do retain a single client from my pre-motherhood days, and made some coffee money from my YouTube channel.) Still. I am not making much money because I am the primary caregiver for my children and I am just not skilled enough to work full time from home and nurture them full time as well.
Privilege
We are only able to forgo the fullness of my financial contributions because we have immense privilege. I have a spouse who works, usually in high-stress food tech jobs. We have a family safety net through his family, who have caught us and kept us going more than I wish were true, especially lately as my spouse is undergoing career transition. We were only able to buy this suburban home, in one of the wealthiest counties in the US, because it was my spouse’s grandparents’ house. Growing up as I did, with very little in the way of financial or family support, makes this tangible love of family something of a wonder. It is the privilege of this love and support that makes our life possible.
I may not have grown up with financial resources, but I did have the good fortune to be born bright. This enabled me to become a scholarship student at a local private school, where a handful of teachers and mentors ensured I was able to develop a decent amount of self esteem and grammar skills. This is a privilege I have leaned on again and again.
Yet another privilege I have is that of friendship. The deep support of a handful of other mothers who are also struggling through this capitalist patriarchy. They are the remnants of community that I have clung to, like shards of driftwood in the sea that I am attempting to lash together, all while bobbing around in the sea. They lift me above the waterline when I struggle to stay afloat, and I am grateful.
These are all things that make living this slower, more intentional life possible, for me. I know one can live a slow life without lots of money, but the truth is that we do exist within a colonial capitalist patriarchy, and that makes this choice exceedingly difficult — unless you have inherited wealth, good fortune, skin color, or other factors that aren’t necessarily in your control.
I share this with you because I always aim to be honest. I don't feel that I can advocate for living a slower lifestyle without acknowledging that it comes at a cost. I can’t advocate for it without sharing how I personally am able to make it happen. That would be like giving you some elaborate recipe and leaving out a key ingredient or direction!
I am not a writer of great following, nor am I an influencer with loads of sway. But I strongly feel like more of us who advocate for slow and simple living need to begin to examine and share just how we are able to make these choices. It isn’t only disingenuous to pretend otherwise; it prevents us from a full understanding of our own inner selves and motivations. It may be anxiety inducing, but that anxiety is a weed that needs gentle pulling. How can we grow if we keep things hidden in the dark, smothered by weeds? How can we root down and stretch up if any part of our identity or circumstances is tucked away, in a shamed and whispered state?
Thank you for being here with me today. I know you have many things filing up your inbox, and I deeply appreciate your time spent reading with me. I wish you a lovely and fruitful week ahead — Happy Spring! (or Autumn, if you are in the Southern Hemisphere!)
With much love,
Kristina Franziska
I really enjoyed this honest and thought provoking essay. Thank you.
Thank you for sharing! I am a new stay at home mother myself and the loss of income is hard to contend with sometimes. Capitalism is so tempting. I’ve thought multiple times in the last few months that I should go back to work because we need x thing. I have to constantly re-remind myself that this time at home serving my family is far more valuable than more money and material pursuits.