Do you ever sit around and do nothing — or nothing that is tied to a concrete outcome or goal?
Do you often feel guilty for spending time resting, daydreaming or lazing about? Or are these important parts of your everyday life?
In the guest essay “The Most Valuable Thing I Can Teach My Kid Is How to Be Lazy,” Elliot Kukla, a rabbi who provides spiritual care to those who are grieving, dying, ill or disabled, writes that he has “seen the limits of the grind.” His essay begins:
“Abba, I have an idea,” says my 3-year-old. “Put on your pajamas and your big mask, turn off the light, and get into bed.”
“That sounds great,” I say, honestly. I strap on my sleep apnea mask, change into soft, worn cotton PJs and crawl under the fluffy white duvet with him. Within seconds, he is lulled to sleep by the familiar gentle wheezing of my breathing machine. He knows the sight and sound of my sleeping body well; I have Lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes chronic fatigue. On a good day, I can get by on 10 hours or so of sleep. When my condition flares, sometimes for weeks on end, I need to sleep for much of the day and night.
Before my child was born, I was afraid that my fatigue would make it impossible for me to be a good parent. And it’s true that I am often juggling parenting needs and exhaustion. What I didn’t anticipate is that prioritizing rest, sleep and dreaming is also something tangible I can offer my child.
He sees me napping every day, and he wants in. We build elaborate nests and gaze out the window together, luxuriously leaning on huge mounds of pillows. Most 3-year-olds I know fight bedtime, but we snuggle under the blankets on cold winter evenings, sighing in synchronized delight.
America in 2022 is an exhausting place to live. Pretty much everyone I know is tired. We’re tired of answering work emails after dinner. We’re tired of caring for senior family members in a crumbling elder care system, of worrying about a mass shooting at our children’s schools. We’re tired by unprocessed grief and untended-to illness and depression. We’re tired of wildfires becoming a fact of life in the West, of floods and hurricanes hitting the South and East. We’re really tired of this unending pandemic. Most of all, we are exhausted by trying to keep going as if everything is fine.
The essay ends:
Laziness is more than the absence or avoidance of work; it’s also the enjoyment of lazing in the sun, or in another’s arms. I learned through my work in hospice that moments spent enjoying the company of an old friend, savoring the smell of coffee or catching a warm breeze can make even the end of life more pleasurable. As the future becomes more tenuous, I want to teach my child to enjoy the planet right now. I want to teach him how to laze in the grass and watch the clouds without any artificially imposed sense of urgency. Many of the ways I have learned to live well in a chronically ill body — by taking the present moment slowly and gently, letting go of looking for certainty about the future, napping, dreaming, nurturing relationships and loving fiercely — are relevant for everyone living on this chronically ill planet.
To be sure, it is my privilege that allows me to teach my child to be lazy. Many people in this country and elsewhere spend all their time working, some holding multiple jobs. Many still struggle to afford housing and food. For too many, laziness is not an option.
But rest should not be a luxury; our time belongs to us and is not inherently a commodity. Reclaiming our time is an act of sovereignty over our lives, deserved by everyone. “Rest,” says the nap bishop, the Black activist Tricia Hersey, “is a radical vision for a liberated future.”
Today, my child and I are playing a game of hill. We are lying under a giant pile of every blanket in the house, pretending to be a hill studded with soft grasses. His warm breath is on my neck, skinny limbs splayed across my soft belly.
“Shh, Abba,” he says. “Hills don’t move or talk … they just lie still and grow things.”
I am teaching my child to be lazy, and so far, it’s going really well.
Students, read the entire essay, then tell us:
What points made by Rabbi Kukla resonate with you? Where do you not see eye to eye with him, and why?
Do you agree that rest has a stigma, particularly in the United States? Can you give an example from your own life, or from something you’ve seen or heard about, when resting or laziness was looked down upon?
Do you think laziness can be a good thing? Rabbi Kukla argues that prioritizing rest could help people take better care of themselves, each other and our world. Describe in your own words what that could look like. Or, if you disagree, explain why these actions would not bring about change.
The essay states: “It’s poor, unhoused, young, Black, brown, mentally ill, fat and chronically sick people who are most often accused of sloth. We rarely hear about lazy billionaires, no matter how much of their fortune is inherited.” What is your reaction to this statement? Does it match what you’ve seen or experienced in the world? Why or why not?
If you were given a whole day in which you had nothing to accomplish and you did not have to be productive at all, how would you spend it? Would you take the opportunity to rest? Would you feel bad about taking a break? Would you opt to do work instead?
Want more writing prompts? You can find all of our questions in our Student Opinion column. Teachers, check out this guide to learn how you can incorporate them into your classroom.
Students 13 and older in the United States and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.
