So I decided to make it an annual routine.  We did it again this summer.   The results were just as good.  I’m convinced I’ve found the secret to falling in love again and again – with the same woman.   Plus, I get this fantastic experience with my four children, who are between the ages of five and fifteen.  They think dad is cool.

Meantime, my wife decided to write about her experience.  So I’m going to break with tradition and let you read her blog this week instead of mine.

Dusk is falling as I jump on my bicycle and head for our mailbox.  It is a half-mile ride from our front door.  I pedal casually at first, looking at our horses grazing in the pasture alongside our driveway.  As I ride between the rows of pine trees, a warm breeze stirs their branches.  All I hear are birds twittering in the trees and the crunch of the gravel beneath my bicycle tires.

Then I hit the dirt road.  Much of it is one gradual, low hill.  I stand up on the pedals to pump harder.  Cresting the hill I sit back, slowing my peddling and breathing.  The fireflies send out their mating call: flash on, flash off.

Upon reaching the mailbox, I retrieve the mail and put it in a bag that hangs from my handle bars.  Then I turn and start for home.  This time, the half-mile ride is almost all downhill.  As I pick up speed, the warm summer air rushes through my long hair.  I grip the handle bars tightly and coast for home.  I feel as carefree as a young girl.

I can’t remember the last time I took such a ride.  But this is an unusual week.  I haven’t left our property in several days other than to jog or bike ride to the mailbox.   My husband took the kids to the beach in Connecticut for a week.  I stayed home to take care of the animals and gardens.  It may sound like I got the short end of the stick, but not so.  In fact, I volunteered for the job.  Yes, the chores take a few hours a day, but unlike children the animals don’t talk back.

When my husband took the kids away this week, he gave me the gift of time.  Quiet moments to stop and gaze at the mountains or listen to the bullfrogs in the pond don’t seem to happen unless I put it on my calendar.  And the detachment from my usual child-rearing role opens up time for me to pursue some of my own interests.

But even with the kids gone this week, there are a multitude of projects that cry out for my attention.  I resist the urge to organize the kids’ closets or clean out their dressers.  Instead I sunbathe and read classic literature and write.

I let the mail pile up and I stay out of the home office.  Rather, I and go watch a “chick-flick” complete with popcorn and lots of butter.

I even stop myself before I clean the kitchen cupboards and instead take a bath by candlelight.

Of course I love my children.  But one of the biggest challenges of motherhood is not losing oneself and the simple pleasures that bring us satisfactions and peace.  Every mother knows that caring for children is more than a full-time job.  It often starts before you get out of bed each morning and continues long after the children are in bed at night.  With all the cooking, cleaning, homework, shuttling kids from one activity to the next, teaching, disciplining (never mind building relationships), it is nearly impossible to avoid being swallowed up in the never-ending work of motherhood.  Whether reading a book, watching a movie, or some other rare pleasure, a mother is hard pressed to find the time and energy for herself.

Stay-at-home moms tend not to have time or make time for personal endeavors or pleasures.  Something as simple as reading a book for pleasure, watching a movie of your choice, or taking a joyride on a bicycle become nearly impossible.  Under these conditions, a woman can lose their self identity in the call of action.  (Of course, stay-at-home dads could face similar challenges).  Most fathers go to the office and immerse themselves in their profession.   For a woman who stays home to raise her children, motherhood is her career.  But the difference is that when the five o’clock hour arrives, she can’t check out.

Motherhood is unlike any other position.  It’s a blue collar job like a hotel maid or a bus driver, except there’s no paycheck.  It’s like being a student again with homework and papers to edit, except there’s no diploma.  It’s like being a judge with your decisions constantly questioned, except there’s no prestige.  While motherhood is a lifetime appointment, it ought to come with a few perks.  Some solitude to rediscover the woman inside is just one example.

Thank you, Jeff for a gift that money can’t buy.

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Because women are having babies later and later, the number of parentless parents in America is skyrocketing. While life expectancy is also on the rise, it isn’t growing fast enough to guarantee the children born to these parents will have more time with their grandparents. What this means is that all of our assumptions about grandparents being around longer than ever before — because they’re living longer, after all — are simply inaccurate.

For the first time in U.S. history, millions of children (and their parents) are actually vulnerable to having less time with their grandparents than more. Between 1970 and 2007, the average age for a woman to give birth rose 3.6 years. During the same period, life expectancy for a 65-year-old increased 3.4 years. While that doesn’t seem earth-shattering on its own, consider another trend: While women overall are having fewer babies, mothers between 40 and 54 are having more. For example, 180,000 children were born to mothers 35 and older in 1972. Nearly 40 years later, that number soared to 603,113 — a 235 percent increase. This jump is so significant it can’t be explained away by increasing population size. Unquestionably, a revolution is happening in the way generations are connected in America.

This has massive consequences for every member of the family. Parents are raising kids without the support of their own mothers and fathers, and kids don’t have grandparents, with all the social, behavioral and cognitive benefits associated with these grandparent/grandchild relationships.

For the last three years, I’ve conducted one-on-one interviews, led numerous focus groups, and launched the Parentless Parents Survey, the first of its kind, which gathered responses from across the United States and a dozen countries, in order to study this growing population. Most shocking to me during this time is that I couldn’t find any research like it. Dozens of government institutions, committees and commissions are tasked with researching the changing landscape of the American family; yet while the American population is shifting in such a dramatic and measurable ways, no other investigation has been done on what these changes mean to parents and their children.

Here are some of my findings… (read the rest of the article here)