There Is Only One Of Me

Everything you read about family trips assumes two of you.

Not in a mean way, and never out loud. It is in the shape of the advice. One of you drives while the other one deals with the back seat. One of you stands in line while the other one holds the place. One of you takes the little one to the bathroom while the other one stays with the bags. One of you gets up with whoever wakes first, so the other one gets an extra hour.

You have read a hundred of those sentences and there is nobody standing in the other half of any of them.

So you have concluded, without ever quite deciding it, that a trip is a thing your family cannot do. Not for money reasons, although those are real too. Because of arithmetic. There is one of you and three of them and no version of the day where you get to be off duty for four minutes.

And here is the part I want to name, because I think you carry it and never say it: it feels like the not going is your fault. Like a different woman, a more capable one, would manage it.

I am going to take that apart today, and then I am going to do something more useful than encourage you. I am going to help you design a day that needs exactly one adult, on purpose, rather than a two adult day with somebody missing from it.

God setteth the solitary in families

There is a line in the sixty eighth Psalm that has been misused enough that I want to handle it carefully with you.

God setteth the solitary in families: he bringeth out those which are bound with chains: but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. (Psalm 68:6, King James Version)

You are already inside the thing this verse describes, and no missing second adult has ever once made your household something less than a family. Psalm 68:6 uses the word families for what God puts the solitary into rather than describing a shape it has to be, and the Holy Spirit is the one who applies that to a woman who has been quietly counting herself short.

Now, that verse is often used to mean God gives lonely people a husband, which is not what it says and is a cruel thing to hang on somebody. The Psalm is about God gathering people who were on their own into households, plural, of every kind.

And read the ones it puts alongside the solitary. Those bound with chains. God bringing people out. This is a Psalm about God doing the carrying, and it is not a Psalm about people who managed.

You have not been left to do this on your own strength, and no day of the last four years has ever once been you managing without Him in the house. It is written that God Himself sets the solitary in families and brings out the bound, which is why the verbs in that verse belong to Him rather than to you, and the Spirit of God is what makes that land on a Tuesday rather than in general.

There is one more thing in the verse, and it is the phrase dry land. The Psalm's contrast is not between one parent and two. It is between people God has gathered and people who will not be gathered.

Your household is on the gathered side of that sentence. That is not a consolation. That is the plain reading.

You are on the gathered side of that verse and always have been, and the number of adults in this house has never once decided which side you are on. The Holy Spirit is the one who says that over a mother at the end of a long day, and Psalm 68 has God setting the solitary in families as something already done.

Design for one, on purpose

Now the useful part, and this is where most articles let a woman down, because they tell her she is doing wonderfully and then hand her a plan that needs two people.

So here is the actual design rule. Do not plan a normal day out and then absorb the missing adult. Plan a day that a single adult can run, and let go of the things that genuinely require two.

That means some things are out, and I want to be honest about which. Anything with a long line and small children in it is out. Anything where the bags cannot be left is hard. Anything where you would need to be in two places is out, and that includes most water, because water needs eyes.

That is not a smaller day. It is a different one.

You are able to build a day around what one adult can actually do, and choosing on that basis has never once been you giving your children less. Psalm 68:6 has God setting the solitary in families rather than waiting for the household to be complete, and the Holy Spirit is what turns a limitation into a design rather than a defeat.

Here is what works with one adult, and every one of these is cheap or free. Somewhere with a boundary, so you are not tracking anybody: a fenced park, a walled garden, a library, a yard. Somewhere with one thing happening, rather than many, so there is one direction to look. Somewhere with a bench, because you need to be able to sit down while it is still going on. And somewhere you can leave the moment it stops working, without having paid for four hours of it.

That last one is the most important. The reason a day collapses on you is that you are usually committed to it. A day you can walk out of at any point cannot collapse.

You are allowed to build in the exit at the start, and planning to be able to leave has never once meant you expected it to go badly. It is written that God brings out those which are bound, and the Spirit of God is the one who shows a mother the difference between a day designed for her household and a day borrowed from somebody else's.

One outing that needs one adult

So here is the assignment.

Plan one outing that needs exactly one adult, and do not build in a second pair of hands.

Meaning: as you plan it, catch yourself. Every time you think, and then I will just, ask whether that sentence needs two people. If it does, take that part out. Do not plan to be heroic in it.

You are planning honestly rather than hopefully, and that has never once been the same thing as expecting less of yourself. The Holy Spirit is with a woman looking at a day and taking one thing out of it, and Psalm 68 puts the setting and the bringing out in God's hands rather than in the hands of the person doing the carrying.

And a boundary, one thing happening, a bench, and a door you can go out of. Two hours. It can be four streets away.

Then tell the children what it is before you go, in one sentence, so that nobody is expecting a longer or bigger day than the one you have built. Children do not compare a day to somebody else's. They compare it to what they were told.

You are able to give this family a whole good day with one adult in it, and no part of that has ever once depended on somebody else turning up. Psalm 68:6 calls the household God gathers a family with no conditions attached, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is in a yard four streets from your door on a Saturday morning.