No homework, no sports — just a night with family

Excerpted from
The Christian Science Monitor
March 28, 2002

by Harry Bruinius

Ridgewood, N.J. — It’s a small, quiet town, set 20 miles from the world’s most frenetic metropolis — a place where many who reap Manhattan’s largess come to raise their kids, away from the furious din of a city driven by success.

But behind the facade of quaint brick homes tucked into evergreens and rhododendrons, there are signs that many feel as harried as they might be if surrounded by blocks of city high-rises. With schedules jam-packed with activities to sharpen the bodies and wits of kids, child rearing here is as intense as the 80-hour week of a Wall Street attorney.

So this past Tuesday, yet another scheduled event: “Ridgewood Family Night — Ready, Set, Relax!” Instead of soccer practice, piano lessons, homework or staying late at the office, some of the town’s 25,000 residents decided just to take a night off. For the past few months, an 18-member committee worked to gain the support of the public schools, local sports clubs, and religious groups in order to spread the ready, set, relax theme.

“Our hope was to raise awareness,” says Cynthia Busbee, a publicist with a Ridgewood marketing firm who volunteered to help organize and publicize the Family Night. “We just wanted this to give people a time to reflect upon the choices that they make ... to make cookies, to take a walk, or hang out and take in a movie. We just really wanted to say, ‘Hey, we’re overscheduling, let’s stop and take a look at what we’re doing and make conscious choices.”

While many chuckle at the irony — “only in Ridgewood would you have to schedule a time to relax,” some of them say it’s become a clarion call, challenging the very essence of middle-class family life in contemporary America.

At the University of Minnesota, a group called Family Life 1st believes the balance between internal family bonds and external activities has become gravely distorted in modern society, and it is trying to strengthen family bonds through a grassroots movement of concerned families.

Why not make time for your own “Ready, Set, Relax Night” soon in your town?