The Bubble...4.15.2026...

Hey good people, how’s it going? Happy Wednesday.

I hope y’all are doing well. Here we are with a little midweek blog post because it has been a minute. I think it has probably been about three weeks since I last made a post. Life has been busy, and I kind of got off my game for a second, but I am back.

Mamas, how are y’all doing? School is winding down, and if your calendar is anything like mine, that is both exciting and a little terrifying. We have about six weeks of school left, which sounds like enough time until you realize summer is basically already here. What are the kids doing for summer? We have thankfully figured out June and even the first two weeks of July, but I am still trying to see where a vacation can fit in. At this point, we may end up doing something a little outrageous in August since we go back to school in the second week. I say all that to say, if you have not made summer plans for your kids, please go ahead and put that on your radar today. Call your friends, see what they are doing with their kids, ask around, and piece something together. And if you are anything like me, you already know summer has to be part of the yearly budget or it will sneak up on you and take you out.

But honestly, what I really wanted to talk about today is trust. More specifically, trusting other people with our kids. I feel like that is something I struggle with more than I sometimes even realize. If I had the mental capacity, the time, and the money, I probably would keep my kids home and homeschool them. I would teach them the world myself. But that is not my reality, so I send them to school, and I stay as involved as I can because I want my children to know school matters. I also want the people around them to know that I am present, invested, and paying attention. Thankfully, we have had a really good experience, and I truly pray that continues.

Now let’s talk about church.

I have had a few different church experiences in my life, but the church experience I had growing up was very different from what I now realize a lot of other people had. From the time I was born until I was about 18, I went to church Monday, Thursday, Sunday. And at my church, children sat with their parents. We were not separated into children’s church or age groups. That was just normal for me, so I never really thought much about it. I did not realize until I got older and started talking to more people that my experience was actually very different from theirs.

Now that I am grown grown and have children of my own, I hear all kinds of stories about how other people experienced church as kids, and honestly, it still surprises me. The church we go to now is small and homegrown, which I love. Yes, the kids are separated there, but it still feels comfortable because it is familiar. I have also visited what people would call a mega church before, and even in that setting, I got to know the teachers and volunteers. There were cameras, systems, and ways to check in on your kids, so even though it was different, there was still some comfort in that.

This week, though, I had a whole new experience.

We were invited to a friend’s church for her birthday, and let me tell y’all, I was completely thrown off. I was literally sitting in the parking lot trying to process what I was seeing because there was no regular service happening. It was only kids’ service. Parents were just driving up, dropping their kids off, making sure they got into the building, and then leaving. Not walking them in and staying for service. Not hanging around. Just dropping them off and coming back later.

I have never seen anything like that before.

The service was from 5:30 to 7:30. They were feeding the kids and then teaching them, and I really did not have words. I was shocked. I am still shocked, honestly. I kept thinking maybe I was misunderstanding something, but no, that was the setup. And in this small town, there had to be close to a hundred kids there. A hundred. I was really bamboozled.

Even talking to my daughter’s friend’s mom, I found myself stuttering because I did not quite know how to explain that I was just out of my element. My daughter’s friend was there, and then I found out my daughter’s teacher goes there too, which gave me some comfort, but still, I felt like I was in completely uncharted waters. I already know I can be a bit of a helicopter mom, but this felt bigger than that. This just felt new. Different. Unexpected.

And then my mind started going in a hundred different directions. Is this normal? Is this something people have been doing all along, and I am just now finding out? Did y’all go to church without your parents as kids? Did y’all have youth group? Did y’all go to VBS? Was being dropped off at church just a regular part of life for some of y’all? 

Then of course, my brain also started going to the logistics of it all. Are all of these people on staff? Are they volunteers? How is all this organized? How do parents build trust in this setup? And if I am being fully honest, diversity crossed my mind too. When we walked in, it was our family and one other child who looked like us, and I am not even going to lie, seeing that one little girl gave me some comfort. Thank you, Lord, for that small reassurance in the middle of me trying to figure out what exactly was going on.

So now I am bringing this to y’all because I really need to know. Is this normal? Have y’all experienced this? Am I wigging out for no reason? Am I just an adult still learning that the world is much bigger and much different than what I grew up with?

That is all I got for today. Thank y’all so much for being here and for always letting me process life out loud.

As always you can find me on YouTube @TrappedintheSouth or on Instagram @TrappedintheSouthLA.

Don’t be shy, let’s be social.

A