Putting down the phone
By MADOLINE MARKHAM
When Rachel Stafford visits area schools, she tells students she is writing a book about parents putting down the cell phones. Immediately, their hands shoot up in the air to share their thoughts with her.
Stafford’s blog post on their responses, “The children have spoken,” got 20,000 hits in two days.
“Children notice when they are being ignored,” said the Liberty Park mom of two. “We forget that life is going on around us. Many people tell me that they didn’t realize how they were being distracted.”
Her blog, Hands Free Mama, is all about letting go of daily distractions, perfections and control to focus on someone or something meaningful. A new book based on the blog, Hands Free Mama: A Guide to Putting Down the Phone, Burning the To-Do List, and Letting Go of Perfection to Grasp What Really Matters! is being released Jan. 7 by Christian publisher Zondervan.
The book is divided into 12 themed chapters, all full of personal family stories, simple and concrete ideas, letting-go actions, weekly intentions and reflections.
In August 2010, Stafford was married to her college love, had two small children and was very busy. But she asked herself, “Am I really happy?”
“I found I was always saying, ‘Not now. Mommy’s busy,’” she said. “People would ask me ‘how I did it all.’ I found that I was missing out on life, the praying, memory making, the laughing.”
It was in that breakthrough moment that she made the decision to become what she calls “hands free.” She started implementing “let go” tactics to devote time to be fully present with her children and spouse. Each was small but had a profound impact.
Three months into her hands free journey, she started blogging. As a former special education teacher, lifelong writer and gifted encourager, she wanted to share the concept she was living.
“I want the community to come and be inspired and share their own hands free stories and how their small changes are making a big difference in life,” she said. “There is a movement of people who want to live hands free.”
Before long, The Huffington Post started carrying some of her posts including “The Day I Stopped Saying Hurry Up” and “Six Words You Should Say Today,” which collectively have attracted more than 1 million Facebook “likes.”
Stafford hears feedback on living hands free not just from moms but also dads, grandparents, and even single women who someday want to have a family.
“It resonates with people in all walks of life,” Stafford said. “We all suffer the damage of distraction.”
She speaks to women’s groups and Bible studies on internal distraction as well.
“There is this pressure on women to do it all perfectly,” she said. “It’s okay to be able to say, ‘I can’t do it all.’”
For her, life is about its focus.
“My life mission statement is to be present in my children’s lives and to use my gifts to help others,” she said. “When I am asked to volunteer for something, I ask how it compares to my life mission statement. So, for instance, I now focus on community events that directly involve my children.”
She spends about eight hours a day — while her children are at school or sleeping — writing and blogging and filling notebooks with ideas. The rest of her time, she is living and modeling for her kids how to reach outside themselves to extend grace to other people and put others before themselves.
Through this and all of her writing, Stafford notes how supportive her family is. Her children fuel her ideas.
“They know Mom loves to write and has a gift to share,” she said. “They love the hands free version of me.”
For more visit handsfreemama.com.