Why are we starting a blog?
You might be curious, what exactly is FolkLife Rhythms? Why are we beginning a passion project like this right now, in the midst of such a full and busy season of life with young kids? Well, we’ve been refining our ideas on how our young family can work as a team, and creating systems that help us do that – aka. Rhythms! After receiving curiosity and encouragement from friends, family, and the occasional stranger, we realized we needed a place to organize our thoughts on organization 🤓 in order to connect, share, and grow together.
Why ‘FolkLife Rhythms’?
Well, Folkman is our last name and we want to incorporate it into this space. Folk has many connotations. For us, the word evokes a sense of community, story, heritage, tradition, and simplicity, all things we will touch on here. And naturally, folk makes us think of music, something that connects people and is a significant part of our relationship and our family (read how we first connected in Our Story ).
Rhythms are helpful in many spheres of life ~ personal, relational, physical, entrepreneurial, spiritual … every sphere, really. We will be sharing ways we are finding them impactful when put under the pressures of family life. However, we believe these are fundamentals that apply in any context, life in general.
Routine, system, balance – these are are all words that relate to our focus here. But rhythm is what we resonate with the most. It is often the word we use when we talk about ‘routines’ with our kids at home. Bringing the meaning and nuances of these words together is how we came to the name FolkLife Rhythms.
Family life comes with challenges – rhythms can help
Marriage is hard work. Add in kids, and the demands and stresses of life compound really quickly. We’ve been in seasons where the kids are consistently unregulated. Ones where we are tense and short with one another, and emotions are all around heightened. Every parent has had the thought, “whyyy is bedtime so hard when it’s the same every single DAY!” It seems it’s the regular, day-to-day tasks that can bring about the most upheaval in a family home. The transitions! Things like getting ready for school, bedtime, and loading up the van (yes, we are a minivan family – if you aren’t, thats ok, just please don’t ding our beloved sliding doors with your swinging ones 😉).
Comedian Michael Mcintyre captures the challenge of parenting well in a comedy sketch. He says, “You have no idea how difficult things will become in your life. Things that you don’t even consider to be things will become nearly impossible … things like, leaving the house.” We relate! Click here to watch the sketch.
Rhythms can help us flourish as a family
We believe that by creating life rhythms in our homes, we can find our family grooves. Even in those triggering transitional moments, we can ENJOY life with our kids. We are excited to delve into topics like teamwork, life rhythms, flexible frameworks, autHOMEation 🤪, home and family organization, identity, our faith, and connection with our kids. Living life with intention has helped us experience a settledness in our home that we really value. Rather than resigning ourselves to simply ‘surviving’ as a busy family and ‘getting by’, rhythms have helped us feel like our family can flourish. We want to share more about how this looks for us because we believe rhythms can help other families in the way they are helping ours.
Spontaneity and life rhythms can jive
Now, some of our friends who hear the word ‘rhythm’ or ‘routine’ may think ‘no thanks, we’re more the adventurous, spontaneous type – we don’t want our family to be dependent on routines to function.’ We hear you, and this space is for you, too! Spontaneity and life rhythms can jive! Routines that are rigid can feel restricting and limiting, but frameworks can bring structure and flexibility. The consistency and security that come from reliable life rhythms will help our kids embrace spontaneous adventures with more stability, readiness, and ease. We believe that when our kids know what their equilibrium feels like and what steps they consistently take to move through their daily responsibilities, they will be able to let loose and ENJOY life with an even deeper sense of confidence and joy!
Dive in to rhythms alongside us
There’s lots more to say and we love talking about this stuff, so join us! We love to learn, grow and challenge ourselves, and are pumped to now have this space to do that in community. So we invite you to explore FolkLife Rhythms alongside us!
Much love from,
Brianna and Ben
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