064 - Making Memories with Sally Clarkson
- A special series: May is for Mamas -
Our guest today is Sally Clarkson:
Sally is a mom of 4 adult children, grandmother of 2, she loves people, especially her own; walking and tea times. She has written 21 books, and hosts a popular podcast, At Home With Sally.
She loves inspiring women to live into their full capacity, and loves painting a beautiful, transcendent picture of Christ and to help people know Him and fall in love with Him. She lives between Colorado and Oxford.
Resources from this episode:
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Show Notes:
Today’s conversation with Sally Clarkson felt like a big hug from your mom—that you really needed. We talk all about making memories with our children, and to be honest I had this idea in my head that it would be all about planning these grand, extravagant trips and celebrations, but it wasn’t. It was about the day-to-day life, about the little things, and really, it’s all about your health and happiness as a mom.
So, I hope you really enjoy our conversation today.
Hit play above to listen in, or read through it below!
Nancy Ray: Sally, what an honor it is. I can't even tell you how incredibly thankful I am that you're here today. Thank you for taking your precious time and spending it with me and my listeners today. It means so much to me.
Sally Clarkson: Well, I am actually thrilled to be here. This is so much fun for me. I love what you do, I think it's quite beautiful. And also, I love the women that you're reaching out to. So this is really fun for me.
Nancy: Well, thank you. Every time I hear your voice, and I think so many people probably feel the same way, you've probably heard this before, but I just feel so comforted. There's so much warmth and love.
Sally: The funnest thing for me is that there are a lot of children now who recognize my voice.
Nancy: Oh, I love that.
Sally: People will tell me that somebody will turn on a podcast or something, they'll go, is that Sally or is that Tally? I feel honored that my voice is actually recognizable. It's just my voice to me.
Nancy: That is so sweet. Well, I think there's something, your voice has this warmth to it that I just love and I feel like I'm talking to a mom, you're like a mom to so many, and I think that's one of my favorite things. I feel the warmth and the kindness of the Holy Spirit in your voice. I think that's what draws people in to just listening to you.
So, I do want to just start out by saying thank you. My big sister introduced me to you. She's got five children with one on the way. And she has triplets, identical triplets in that mix. And she said, "Be sure to tell Sally that she got me through the little years of raising a one and a half year old, plus newborn triplets." And she just was like, "I can't believe you're talking to her. I'm so grateful. Please tell her thank you." She's the one that introduced me to you and it's just really sweet The impact that you've had on each of us and on our families and on the way that the mother. So I just had to share that with you because I knew you would love that.
Sally: Oh, I love that story. I really pray a lot for the people who are in my audience because I think that being a mom, especially the older I get, the more I'm educated and the more I challenge myself to read more and more. Moms are so profoundly important, and I think they're so under-supported in our culture today. I had ideals, I don't know where I got them from because I'd never changed the diaper, I'd never really babysat. So when I had my babies, I had no idea what to do. But I want to support women who are doing what you're doing and your precious sister, because it's worthy, and it's a lonely place and it's different than it's ever been in all of history. And so, I just love all of you, and it's my privilege to be able to encourage even just a wee bit that I really appreciate you saying that.
Nancy: Well, I'm excited to chat with you today, especially about the importance of making memories. I think this is woven throughout so many of your books, but especially The Life-giving Home, which I just recently read, just the importance of making memories with your children, being intentional about that. And when I think about motherhood or parenting, now, I have three little kids, I think about a lot of things, I think about tantrums and breastfeeding and sleepless nights and all kinds of things. But when I think about the really good stuff of parenting and motherhood, the things that really keep me going and excited for the years that are to come, it's making memories, making those unforgettable memories as a family. I think anyone who's read your books, who's followed you, knows this is something the Clarkson family does really well.
So, I would love for you to just talk a little bit about the importance of intentionally making memories as a family. And what does that do for you as the parent as well as the child?
Sally: Well, I think you have to start out, when you first have your little ones, whether you've been trained for it or not, eventually, I began to realize that from the moment you accept a little baby into your arms as a precious human being, the way that you receive that baby is going to be remembered in the brain pathways of that child forever. As a matter of fact, the first four years of their lives, the way that you relate, the way that you speak, the food that you eat, the way you treat people and your husband and your dog and everyone else, our little babies are storing up this vocabulary for life in their memories, and they're learning what to value, how to value, what is good, what is bad.
So, I think that just what you're talking about today, the making of memories is even in their little psyches in ways that we can't even see but will be lived out through their whole lives. So memory is a way that we learn and educate our kind of narratives for the rest of our life.
Nancy: I think it's really encouraging to hear that. My children are four, two and one. I have two girls and a boy. And a lot of times, you can think, they're not going to remember what I said today or they're not remember what I did. It's kind of a thankless job and it's very routine and it's very physical, there's a lot of bathing and changing diapers and feeding and setting that on repeat. Just to stop and be reminded that the way that I'm loving them and nurturing them when they fall down and scrape their knee or the way that I'm feeding them or providing boundaries for them to learn to live and play in a healthy way, it can feel like that's not going to matter tomorrow, but it does because it's building blocks.
Sally: It does. It really does. I was reading an interesting article recently that said that whenever you kiss a little baby's head or face, they absolutely can measure now that they grow in ability to be intelligent. And so, the memories that a child-
Nancy: That's amazing.
Sally: Isn't that amazing? So when you touch and hold your child, I think that I would start out with one of the memories you want to make for your children is the way that you welcome them. The way that you decide in your heart, this is a human being whose consequences for life are going to last forever. So I want to welcome this child into my home as a gift. And if you can kind of cultivate that grid from what you see, doesn't mean you always feel like welcoming them, it doesn't mean you don't get tired, doesn't mean that you aren't selfish.
But if you can work forward on saying, I want to be a welcome place, I want this child to have every opportunity to feel loved, to be inspired, to grow. And that's the miracle of what civilized women can do, they can actually send into the next generation children whose memories and brain pathways have been shaped by love, by honor, by kindness, by civility, by, I'm going to say academics. In other words, when you speak to your children, when you develop conversations with them, when you read little books, when you narrate the world, look at the amazing sunset. Aren't all of the colors, the blue, the pink, they're establishing memories.
And I know you're talking about other memories, which I'm so happy to talk about, like habits and routines and special times. But the child's brain is formed and shaped and grows because of the way that they were made to have memories for the rest of their life from the first four years of life.
Nancy: And I think it's important to start there. Those bigger memories that we're about to talk about, like vacations or rhythms or daily things that we do in the home, they're built on how the child views life and those foundational memories. So, I'm so glad that you went back there even to a newborn baby being welcomed home because that's where it starts.
Sally: And singing. Singing to a child, they say that children who hear music and are sung to are much more likely to carry a tune. All the statistics and the research just says that those important first years really help a child to have a stable and kind of a launching pad for their whole life.
Nancy: So beautiful. I love how music has been such a great part of your family in your home. It's something that we really hope to cultivate and nurture in our home. It's just a home of music. We actually bought a house and moved into it almost two years ago. And my husband and I planned a date night where we just came to the empty station before we renovated it, before we moved in, we just prayed over every room.
And the Lord told me, it was so quiet. Starkly quiet when you have, I had two little ones and I was pregnant at the time. It was so very quiet when you're used to all the noise. And the Lord just told me just wait, there's going to be an orchestra music in this home. And the orchestra isn't going to be necessarily music. It could be lots of different noises, and certainly, my home is very loud today, but it's just sweet to know that all of those things, they build on each other.
So, going back to memories, what are some of your favorite memories? Just in the Clarkson family, what are some of your favorite memories that you guys made together? What are some things that come to mind for you?
Sally: We have such a strong family culture. I didn't even know to think about it that way before. What are the things that in your family, you cherish, you value, you're going to shape? You always think it's the big things that you do that matter or the expensive things, but a couple years ago, both Nathan and Joel one was living in California, the other in Boston. And they said, "I can't wait to come home. I just can hardly wait to come home." And I said, "Well, what is it that you miss or what do you what do you want to come home for?" And they both said, "It's our table. It's that we're going to feast and eat and drink and we're going to converse with each other because no one likes to talk as much as Clarksons do, and we're going to be able to share our lives and our books and our thoughts and our work and our friends. We just miss being around the table and being best friends."
So I did, I wrote a, written a million books about these things, but I wrote a book about Life-giving Table because I think that sometimes, oh my goodness, you have to make all these meals and people are picky and they fast and whatever. But all of our kids have, and we still remember today that and our tea times.
I'm going to talk about that in a minute, but I learned many years ago when I was living in Europe that most of Europe and, of course, England as well, and Austria, where I lived for a long time to begin with, and in Poland, people have what they call a Yauza in the middle of the day. And people all over the country would meet for a cup of coffee, and they would just be friends, they would talk. And when I was there, there weren't the telephones that people were always checking, and I even noticed when I was back in Austria last year, that not as many people are looking the whole time at their phones like Americans are.
And then of course, I have a lot of years in England, and tea time is that civilized moment in the day where you say, okay, I really need to breathe right now. It's kind of like a, I'm going to make this ritual. But the funny thing is is I instituted that when my children were very little and that we were going to stop, and it was usually after nap times. We're going to stop and I didn't give them tea, obviously, but they loved pretending. I would light a candle and I would make them their own kind of tea, whether that was apple juice or three quarters of milk and a quarter teaspoon of tea or whatever. I gave them their own special cups. And then a little either a sweet or a popcorn or something. Those are two habits, that and the table, made us friends. We love being together celebrating life. We're all hobbits at heart.
When I was with Sarah, she has a little girl who just turned two and a new baby, who's three months old. So every morning, to give Sarah and Thomas a break, I would light candles, I don't know, it's just a habit. And of course, they're away from Lily and she didn't have any ability to touch them. But she had this little plastic cup. And when I made my cup of tea, when I came downstairs in my pajamas, I lit the candles and I put on music. And I said, this is going to be, she calls me Queenie, it's from a show that we like. I said, this is going to be a Queenie and Lily tea time every morning.
And so, she got to the point where she would drag me to the kitchen as soon as we woke up. And she would take me over point to the teakettle and say, "Tea." So, I think that just creating moments like, I call them anchors in the day, places where you can stop and civilize a moment and honor a relationship in a really lovely or enjoyable way, it just kind of builds those kind of connective threads between you and your child. It was interesting to me that that's what Joel and Nathan, my boys, were the ones who they remembered that so much. And that's what they longed for, being friends with the table, being connected, being with our people.
Nancy: One of the favorite things that stood out to me when I read Life-giving Home, I think Sarah wrote these words, when she said, someone asked me what it was that my parents did that made me believe in God. And with that same thing, she said it was French toast on Saturday mornings and coffee and Celtic music and discussions and candlelight in the evenings, because in those moments, I tasted and saw the goodness of God in a way I couldn't ignore. And that, I still have chills when I read that because a lot of times I think as moms, we can think, oh, this is frivolous or I've got a million things to do, or I don't know if they're going to remember this. There's so many excuses we can make in the moment of it.
But just to really step back and think about in the eyes of your children, what does that mean? What does that look like? And what does that build in them, that expectancy, that daily routine? It makes them really look forward to that time and those relationships. And it's just a simple and beautiful way to make memories at home. You don't have to go to Disney World to make a memory. It's the little things. And I love that your grown men, your boys, they're grown men now, they want to just come home and sit at the table. I think that says so much about the little things that we do at home.
Sally: Well, I think that sometimes when your kids are little, and it's tiring, it's a whirlwind, it's a mess, and everybody is a little bit self-centered and wants to eat and wants to whine and you're training that out of them. But I think that if you can possibly project into their teen years, moms are always writing me and saying, I just wish my teen would talk to me.
And the way that you get a teen to talk to you is that you take the time to talk to your child when they're little. In other words, if a child grows up feeling like I have times, whether it's the blessing at bed, we always gave our children the blessing at bad. No matter what the day was like, we would always put to rest all the arguments, we would talk about their day and we would kiss them and pray with them. And we would say, I am so glad you're my sweet daughter or you make my life so fun, or I love your jokes, or I'm sorry that we fussed today, but I couldn't do without you.
And again, talking about the memory pathways, I think that when you perceive yourself as a conductor of life, and a conductor of love, if you want children to believe that God is loving when they're 14 and they're full of doubt, then you have to live love through your words, through your time, your service, when they're little so that they have a place to go back into their memory. I remember that I've always been loved. I'm having doubts right now, but I have experienced it, seen it, felt it, remember it. And because of mom's love, I believe in God's love. And there's such a transference of messaging that comes from the way that we speak and live and celebrate when they're little. I hope that makes sense. I realized people would say, why did your teenagers trust you? And I thought, because we've always been friends.
Nancy: Yeah. I'm thinking, of course, I'm thinking of myself and my daughter, Millie, who's five. My second daughter Linden, who's two. They're the ones that I can have conversations with and talk with. And they're funny, they're little people conversations and discussions. Sometimes it's easy to just write it off as foolish or childish because-
Sally: Or they're not really paying attention.
Nancy: Right. Absolutely. And oh my goodness, Millie has taught me more than anything, she is listening and paying attention way more than I ever give her credit for. But to stop and think, you know what, this might not matter to me as a 33 year old woman, it might not be a big deal in my mind. And maybe I can feel myself sometimes going to the default of like, well, I just need to teach her that that doesn't matter. But that's the wrong kind of thinking. I need to get on my knees and get down with her and listen to her because it matters to her and talk with her because it matters to her instead of trying to fix her.
Sally: So much of life is by faith at that age. I don't mean to act like I'm always reading articles, but I have been reading a lot lately. And I was reading an article that said that children really require eye contact, babies require eye contact. And when a mom looks at her cell phone when she's nursing her child, when her eyes are diverted for the majority of the time, the anger hormones or the frustrated hormones start developing in the heart of a child.
Nancy: Oh, wow.
Sally: And they said that, they took this child or they would test this with babies, they have taken them in their little baby seats through grocery stores. And everybody in the grocery store was informed not to look at the baby. And when the babies didn't have eye contact with human beings, by the time it was over, they were all screaming because they kind of look at the eyes of people around them. So, that was very interesting to me because there is this dynamic from the time a little baby comes out with the eye contact, with looking at them, smiling, whatever.
Now, obviously, this is in the midst of a very busy day when everybody's pulling on you and they want to eat. But if you have these just kind of anchors in your mind, and also, I thought a lot about the verse, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." I wonder why you don't talk about that more as a child training verse, because if my husband came home and never looked at me and was always busy, and always said, I've got so much more work to do and, and never just sat and enjoyed a moment or listened to my stubbed toe or whatever, I would feel so distant from him.
Nancy: Absolutely.
Sally: And it's the same with little children. I don't want to keep harboring on that. But that's just something that has been really interesting to me because it is hard when moms are so isolated and they want friendship, it's hard not to feel like, well, if I look at my phone maybe one more time, somebody will have thought of me or said something interesting. And yeah, if moms can possibly set boundaries for their phone in the same way they would do for their teens, when their teens are there, just a little bit of focus as a habit can make a big difference in the happiness of a child. I think sometimes children who are acting out are really responding to a deep need that they have just to be listened to and loved.
Nancy: Yeah, I was actually talking about this very thing with a friend not too long ago. And we started talking because we were both nursing our babies at the time, I'm still nursing now. And we talked about how we're just going to start leaving our phones outside of the room. Before we go in to the bedroom to nurse our baby, the phone doesn't come in with us because what I realized is when I would reach my phone, two things would happen. The baby would get distracted by the light, so it's not even a good nursing session. But I would leave feeling sad or I missed something.
Sally: I forgot to look at the baby.
Nancy: Yeah, I ended up doing it for me because I thought, you know what, this season, it feels long now, but it's going to be gone before I know it and I want to be fully present and it's a gift to be able to stop in the middle of my day and just stare at the eyes of my baby while I feed him. That's something that's precious that I don't want to take for granted. And it's so fleeting, but that's just something that I decided, the phone doesn't go in the room with me because it's just, we have these habits of picking it up, or if we hear a text message, we feel like it's urgent. And that's been just a simple thing that I've done that's really been helpful in this season of my life. That's fascinating with the grocery store. It makes so much sense but it's just fascinating, all of that.
Sally: Isn't it? I do think that a lot of kids behavioral issues need to, you need to look in their lives and say, okay, maybe it's not behavior or maybe this is the only means they have to get my attention.
You were asking me about memories. I know one time, I'm a very driven person, I think a lot of women have so much capacity. And there was a time when we were first, I just thought, you know, I want to write a newsletter and encourage women. So we started this newsletter in this tiny little town where we lived. And the kids, because we were in such a tiny town and the newsletter grew really quickly, we had to train the post office how to do bulk mail because this little post office had never done bulk mail before.
And so, at that particular point, I was realizing, we were sorting these newsletters out, and this just goes to Texas and this goes to California. I kind of quit making meals as much, and I was starting to get grumpier. I decided to make the whole bed. I put all the dishes in the dishwasher. These are tiny little children. I would think, why are they being so crabby lately as I'm being so crabby lately. The Lord really convicted me that the problem was that we needed to give up the newsletter, honestly, we just needed to give it up because there were other things we could do. But I realized that over a period of time when I spent some time with the Lord, it was as though he said, there are reasons why they're doing this.
And so, I came out one day and I said, you know what, today, we're going to put everything aside because it was one of those flood times in Texas, it doesn't happen very often. But I said, we're going to go out and we were living at my mother-in-law's house, which is a very interesting part of my life. I said, today, we're not going to do anything important this morning. No chores, no duty. We're going to go out and play in the rain. And they looked at me like I had gone crazy. Like is this our mother?
And so, I put boots on everyone, old clothes, and there's this big ditch that was overflowing with water. It probably had snakes in it. But I went out with the kids, we ran out to this lake and this little ditch that was overflowing with water, and we stomped through it and we screamed and we played water fight. All of the kids to this day look back and they said, "You were such a wild mom." I'm really not. But I realized that they had an image, speaking of memories, it didn't cost me anything, they wanted me to play with them. And I look back on that time as such a contrast because I couldn't get enough kisses at the end of that day. We just love you, you're so fun, you're the best mom in the world.
Whereas on all those other days when I was tying newsletters together because I was so important and I had so much to say to the world, on the newsletter day, they seemed sad at the end of the day. And on the let's just go out and splash and be friends, I think it lasted them for a couple of weeks. They just giggled and laughed and had such a good memory from just taking a few minutes to go outside and enter their little worlds. I had a lot of lessons to learn little by little, but that was oddly one of those memories that all the kids talk about still.
Nancy: Another story that comes to mind, well first of all, let me just say, I totally want to be that mom that takes all of my kids to the muddy puddles and goes out in the rain. I mean, that's so fun, but it's easy to not notice rain as an opportunity for that or not. We think we need to stay inside. It's raining.
Sally: Usually rain says to me, oh no, more muddy clothes.
Nancy: Exactly. So just to change your mindset and turn a rainy day into a great day with an opportunity for memories, wonderful. One of my favorite things, and to this day, the story I think maybe sticks out in my mind, more than any other story in The Life-giving Home is when Sarah talked about how her dad, your husband was going away for a work trip, and he was going to leave for a week. And she felt the weight of it for the first time and you were standing at the doorstep with all four kids and they all kissed him goodbye and he left. In that moment, you turned around and you said, it's time for a movie night. Who wants to snuggle or something like that, you can tell the story better than me.
But I remember you turned it into something so much fun and you made popcorn and you snuggled up on the bed and you guys watched a movie I think. That to me was like, that's beautiful. Taking something that could have been really hard, and in your mind, I think is just as important for the mom as it is for the children. But to turn it into something joyful and playful and fun just kind of goes back to the importance of making memories with whatever circumstance you have, wherever you are at home. It doesn't have to be something grand or big or expensive, just changing the plan in a simple way to make special memories with your kids.
Sally: That's so funny and I had no idea until Sarah wrote the book that she remembered that. But at that particular time, Clay left on Sunday nights and didn't come back until Thursday night or Friday morning because our office was in another town and he had so much to work on. And also, during that time, Joy, my youngest, had nocturnal asthma, so she would gasp every night for about an hour and a half or two at 1:30 in the morning. Eventually we found out it was mold in her room.
But I could kind of tell Sarah at 13 or 14, she was beginning to sense, oh my goodness, Daddy's leaving again and that's kind of hard, and mom has to get up every night with Joy. I realized that, again, I talk about this a lot and my kids laugh at this right now, we were just talking about this on a podcast this week. But I said everyday to them, you have a choice to make. You can either decide that you're going to accept the situation and move into it with a good attitude or, then I would give a consequence because I wanted to train their will. And moms can train their wheels and I realized over many years that one of the best gifts you can give to a child, and it requires growing and maturing, is to give them a sense that their mom is happy.
And I remember Joel once saying to me, we had gone on this long trip of speaking and stuff, we usually did it in January and February and then we were pretty normal the rest of the year. But I had come into the house and we had suitcases everywhere and a lot of wash. I'm sure that by this time, that refrigerator was empty and the piles were high. And I got tears in my eyes, and I said, "We all really need to get with it and clean up the house." I was just feeling overwhelmed. And Joel was a teenager, he's 6'5, my tall boy. And he threw his arm around me and he said, "Mom, would you just chill?" He said, "You know what, when you're happy, even if the house is a total wreck, we all feel secure and we all feel happy. But when you're unhappy, we all feel guilty, and it makes us feel sad. So, could you just decide to make a good choice and be happy right now?"
And I realized that sometimes the things that we think we have to fulfill, I mean, and he even said, he said, "Mom, we're going to get it clean, then it's going to get dirty again, then we're going to get it clean again, then it's going to get dirty again." We hold ourselves to such extremely high standards instead of realizing that it's kind of this organic life that we need to live, and we need to make our home as best a place as we can to please us. That it's a fun place for us too, but it is not about control or perfection. That is elusive. We will never have control or perfection, but we can be kind of the conductor of the symphony that creates the kind of music that is played in our home. My kids have taught me a lot that I didn't know about being a mom.
Nancy: When we started out chatting before this podcast, you were telling me, I'm in these years now where my kids demand so much of me. I was sharing with you, my kids are four and two and one and there's just a lot going on and it's their life ahead of me. And just to hear you share stories like that of Joel like putting his arm around you, and he's 6'5. I'm like, I can't wrap my head around that, in this moment where I am right now. So just to paint that picture of hope, would you just speak to moms who have little ones who are very little, it's all consuming, we're in the season, we're in the thick of it, and just share some encouragement of how important it is to just take the time and to train their minds and to take the time to really speak life over them and to bless them.
And also, I think one thing I struggle with is doing things that make me happy. Sometimes I choose all the things that are obligations or the have tos, and how simple it is, but how healthy and good it is for me to choose things that make me happy, to get outside to go for a run or to make sure I'm spending time with the Lord. Whatever it is, could you speak to moms who have little kids right now and just kind of encourage us a little bit?
Sally: Well, I kept thinking when I had three children under five that if I just got the right planner or if I just made him nap longer or not nap. There's no formula to make that time easy. I think that the reality is, I have this friend that I spend quite a bit of time with, she's in her mid 30s and she has four children, seven and under. And she is always calling me back to memories of that time and she wants to write a book about how unprepared she was for how out of control her life would be. And she said, "I feel like I'm getting to the point where my kids are real people and they're actually doing chores. They're responding to what I'm trying to teach them."
She's so right. I think that you just, it's this crash course. All of a sudden, you're in a totally different kind of schedule than you've ever been in your life. There's demands constantly 24/7, you never sleep, you're exhausted. And it's calling on character that you didn't ever form. I just want to say to moms, be so kind to yourself. You are going to make it. You are just a mom that these precious ones need but I often talk about the fact that you can't, once you've poured everything out and there's nothing else inside, then there's nothing else to pour out.
And it's so important and that's again, me and my tea times and my times in the afternoon or my walks. A wise woman will consider that she's a human being with needs, with physical needs, emotional needs, spiritual needs. And though it's harder when you have little ones, if you can just make five minute times in your day or something that means something to you, whatever you need, a phone call or out at a coffee shop or whatever. If you can guard your heart because from it flow these springs of life, if you can be sure that you're in some small ways, investing in your heart or maybe going away.
I got a double stroller and Sarah had to learn how to walk along way early because I had these two little boys, and then she had to walk far with me. But we would go on these long walks because it would tire everybody out, but everybody was happier when we would walk out in this little park in California where I was living at the time. And for me to get them out when they didn't need me or want me to play one more thing or didn't need one more thing, for me to get them outside every day in the fresh air and exhaust them, that was investing my life. It's fun for me to see the same thing in Sarah now. She and Thomas have been in a very difficult situation in England. And he's had to work long hours. That feeling that when you get to three o'clock in the afternoon, you've played everything you can play, you've said everything you can say, you've loved everything you love. And you think, dear God, I'm not going to make it till five. I don't know if you've ever felt that way.
Nancy: Oh yes, oh yes, every day.
Sally: Sarah said, "Mom, these walks, we are taking these amazing walks every day." And she said, "It's saving my life because I enjoy getting out and the kids, they just love being outside." It's kind if just, as you get your rhythm, and it just takes forever to get your rhythm. It's slow progress at the beginning, but it will matter and it does make a difference, and you're going to fall in love with that child probably, and you're going to see that all of your investment made a difference and you're going to be in a different season in life and go, wow, I never thought this would be over. But it's going to end. And then of course, you're going to age and be a lot older and you're going to go, oh, I wish I had another baby to nurse. That's how I felt, and that's why I'm so glad to have Joy.
Nancy: Yes, yes. The name of my podcast is Work and Play with Nancy Ray. I feel this tension after working for 12 years, and then laying that down and being all in as a mom of young kids. I loved my work. I think it's hard because I do, I need to view myself as a human who needs things, who wants things, but then there's this tension where, in this season of my life, I've laid that aside to be home a lot more. I still have this podcast and a few fun things that I do, but I think for you, I see you as this ideal stay at home mom. And you were for a long time, but in reality, you also were running a ministry and you eventually wrote books. And you do a lot of beautiful work. And now I see your kids following in your footsteps, writing books, participating in your ministry. So can you talk about just the importance of work and play as a mom?
Sally: I think that our kids were always a part of what we did. We tried to make it a part of what we did because I knew that, I mean, I think that first of all, women have a lot of capacity and I think mommy wars where somebody tries to say this choice is better or this choice is better is really terrible because we all have different personalities, different capacities. I enjoy being a professional woman and I also loved being a mom. And my children are my best friends. I would do anything to be with them at any moment because they become such amazing human beings. I get so much inspiration from them.
But I think that there are seasons when you have to be all in with your children. They're only for seasons. And then I think that a wise woman figures it out. I finally realized that, and Clay wanted to be involved with the kids, but he had a very busy schedule. We made a pact that on Saturday mornings till about, morning till two in the afternoon, he said, at least twice a week, I'm going to take the kids away. And so, he found these fun little adventure places to take them or he'd take them to McDonald's or take them to a museum or take them wherever. He started trying to do interesting things with him.
And then that meant that from when I woke up in the morning until two or three in the afternoon, that's when I did my work, because I loved work and I loved writing. And then there was another season in which I would go to this little French cafe at six in the morning. It was me and all the businessmen, it was wonderful. I would get my little piece of quiche and very strong coffee, and then I would write my heart away. And he said, "I will give you until a quarter to eight," because that's when you needed to leave. I'd go to his office.
Three times a week, I would go out and I would work my little heart out from six in the morning until 7:45. And then when I would come back to the house, the kids would have had their breakfast, and they would be up. And then I just was so much more delighted to do what I needed to do because we worked really hard to give me some time to do my work. And I was very blessed that I got to work at home. But then we also made a decision that we would never or rarely ever travel to conferences, where we didn't bring the kids with us. And they would be a part of, we always said, you're the best thing that happened to our ministry and our speaking because you're the book of our lives that other people are going to read. And we're just so thankful for you, you're amazing, and we love how you make mommy smile. And we love how you encourage parents and give them hope that their children matter because you matter so much to us.
And then they grew up learning how to be along with us. And there are a lot of times where I'd have to correct or whatever. But we did make a decision that we wanted our children to breathe the oxygen of the work that we did so that they could develop a work ethic. And it's odd now that all of our children are writers. They all have arenas where they're speaking and writing. I think a lot of it came because we shared that part of our lives with them. That's just our own unique puzzle. But I do think that moms just have to figure out how they, first you have to figure out, what are your priorities, what are your central ideals, and then put it into a schedule when always including a time for yourself.
Now, Thomas has been giving Sarah because she's a writer and she graduated from Oxford with her masters of theology last year, and she has a book contract. So they carved out two times a week when she would write. That's not the only time a week she gets. What I mean is, they live life the rest of the time sharing it together with their jobs and stuff. But she has carved out two, three hour slots a week that gives her the time to really know that at that point, she's going to really focus on her work. And so, even though she has two tiny ones who she spends everyday with all the time with, it kind of has made Thomas, which Clay used to also, step up to the bat. He kind of really engages in being a very active and robust father during this time.
So, you have to come up with your own story. Nobody's story is the same. Yes, children need you a lot when they're little babies. You just have to write down your values and make your schedule from that. Hope that helps.
Nancy: That helps so much. I literally have tears in my eyes as you're saying that. It's so simple but so profound. I think as a woman who also feels driven, who feels like women have an incredible capacity, who has dreams and visions, and I like to dream and I like to write, I'm getting all teary talking to you, it just seems like, I'm so thankful it's almost like you gave me permission to just be my full self and be a full mom. And that's where the beauty of it is. And you have to fight for it, it's not easy. Those little ones will take every single second of your life if you let them. And you want to give it to them, and that's the tension, I want to give them my best, I want to give them everything. But just to give myself permission to say, it's okay to be driven and have these dreams and to want to write and want to do these things and to carve out time for it, you have to.
Sally: You do. I'm so proud of you for giving up your photography because that's what I do with my newsletter. There'll be these realizations that oh, this job at this very moment is causing more stress than it's creating something positive. There are special times. My kids really had my heart my whole time all their lives. And also, they kind of all liked it that we would discuss things and say what would you do about this or how can you help me with this? But I think there are times when you have to give it all and there are times then when you have a more normal life when they aren't all ear infected and asthma filled. It takes a lifetime. If you can move every season in the direction of bringing order, figuring it out, what is most important, putting away those things that don't matter, all the activities that women think matter for their kids, know they cost a lot of money and they really don't matter when they're little unless it gives you a break.
But I think that I would never encourage somebody to work so much that they're not paying attention to their kids because children, to become excellent people, they require a lot of time. Any worthy work of art requires, excellent, requires a great amount of investment. However, I also think that a lot of people tried to tell me what God's will for my life was. They were judging me by their standards. I'm a different sort of person than they were. And I had to say, okay God, in the power of your spirit, give me creativity, help me to know what to do with my drive, help me to know how to be a great mom. I lived in the tension of living out a story that was different than many of my friends, but that was the way that helped us to really pay attention to our whole family and to be human beings, that we all have needs. And God has given women a great capacity of intellect and thought and creativity. And in its season, I think that that's a worthy point of fulfillment for women.
Nancy: Absolutely. Well, Sally, thank you. I can't thank you enough, the words that you've spoken, even just to me and my heart today have been so needed and so good. If no one else hears this conversation, which they will, but if no one else heard it, I would be so, I'm just so grateful for it. Yeah, I would just feel like it's such a fruitful time even if I was the only one to hear it because of how much it's meant to me. So I want you to know that. And I'm so grateful that you did live a different kind of life. I'm so grateful that you did listen to the Lord and you prayed about it and followed the Spirit's leading and did what you needed to do because it has in turn blessed me, my family, my sister's family, so many other friends of mine that follow you and love.
So, I just want to bless you and thank you for that. Thank you for all of the hours and the time that you've spent pouring into books and teaching, but also, this precious hour I've been able to spend with you, I'm very, very grateful.
Sally: Thank you. You're such an encouragement. Let's be next door neighbors.
Nancy: Okay. Deal. That sounds good. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. We've been so blessed.
Sally: Great. Well, I hope we can have more time together soon. But thank you too, and I hope that our paths actually crossed some time. Thank you for having me.
Nancy: I hope so too. Thanks, Sally.
Sally: Bye bye.
Nancy: I'm going to close with a few words from Sally.
“One of the marks of a godly woman is that she takes responsibility for her soul's need for joy and delight. A woman is a conductor who leads the orchestra of her surroundings and the songs and music in her life. God is a goddess creativity and dimension and so he is pleased when we co-create beauty in our own realm through the power of the Spirit. It was a profound realization when I understood that I could become an artist in my very life.”
I love that role, and I feel like it ties perfectly into so many things that Sally and I talked about today. Thanks for listening, and I'll catch you next time.
More Episodes
I am so excited to replay this episode with Emily Ley. If you’ve listened before or you haven’t, this episode is so good. I think that what I love most about her is how much she values the little things—the moments in between—and finding that kind of balance between work and play and what that looks like.