Got Here As Soon As I Could: Discovering the Way Life Should Be - Hardcover

What would happen if we let our kids have the kind of childhood we enjoyed?

My first eight years of motherhood can be summed up like this: I drove little people through stop-and-go traffic, from one end of a busy city to another, for planned activities and sports.
 
We were living in Florida, where my children were basically "imprisoned" by society's ideas about what makes a good mother and how many things in the world could harm them. 

Then one day, Uncle Sam moved us to Maine. 

Maine is filled with miles of lakes and forests that refuse to contain its children. They simply cannot. And soon we discovered that the "way things used to be" can still be "the way things are" for today's children. 

GOT HERE AS SOON AS I COULD is filled with newspaper columns I wrote during my first seven years in Maine. Within these short stories, I hope readers will see glimpses of their own childhood and what they've always dreamed of for their children.

But wait! Readers outside of Maine should not despair.

It's true that Maine's environment makes over-parenting difficult, but at one point in our history, neighborhoods all over our country operated like Maine's do--with sidewalks, parks, and parents who are willing to let go and trust. 

There is a reason Maine is Vacationland and why thousands of families send their children to camps here in the summer. However, Maine's ethos needn't only be a respite from the world's fast pace and privacy-fence jungle. Maine's ethos used to be America's, too. And it can be again. 

Sarah Smiley is the author of a syndicated newspaper columnist and author of the memoirs Dinner with the Smileys (Hyperion, 2013), Going Overboard (Penguin/New American Library, 2005), and a collection of essays titled I'm Just Saying . . . (Ballinger, 2008). Sarah has been featured in The New York Times Magazine; O, the Oprah Magazine; Parade (cover story); GoodHousekeeping; Newsweek; and Military Spouse Magazine (cover story). Sarah also has appeared on the Today Show, Katie (Couric), Nightline, CBS's The Early Show, and other CNN and Fox News programs. In 2014, Smiley was awarded the American Legion Auxiliary's prestigious "Public Spirit Award."