It’s a funny thing, the summer holidays. It can feel like quite a tough parenting shift at times. There is childcare to worry about and work to juggle. Money is a real issue in our house over the holidays and if feels like every time I step out my front door I’m spending faster than I can earn. The kids spend too much time together and they can’t work out if they want to kill each other or gang up on me and I can’t work out of I’m supposed to be a father or a referee.
On top of this there is a lot of societal pressure to have a perfect summer. To make sure the kids have days out and playdates and down time and get a bit bored because that’s healthy but not too bored because that isn’t healthy and they should have some screen time but not too much and there’s a ton of guilt that comes with not being able to do all the things and get all of this right without any strops, shouting or killing each other.
On social media summer holidays seem to fall in to two camps. There’s the ‘look at us, aren’t we perfect, my summer is amazing and so is my family’ camp and there is the ‘oh my god my kids are feral, look at them aren’t they wild, I hate them (but don’t really) how will we cope for 6 weeks’ camp. And I’m not keen on being in either camp.
I also fully appreciate that I get to say this as someone who does all of it as half of a partnership. My wife and I are a good team. We’re very much on the same page and we support each other and we both have work that is reasonably flexible to the demands of the holidays. We live in an area known for its beaches and green spaces and although the place where I live is resolutely working class, my children have their own rooms and we have a little space out the back that could be just about classed as a garden. I know not everyone has these things and that’s important to mention because all of it helps.
But within this mess, there is also some lovely things that happen. Days out are long and expensive but they also bring important family time. I love the summer because we do more things together and more importantly, we have fun when we do them. The treadmill of modern life doesn’t allow for much fun because there’s always something that needs to happen instead. In amongst the stress and the worrying through the summer months, there is laughter and ice cream and splashing and joyful shrieking and new experiences and we get to do all of it together.
We all feel the benefit of a break from the routine of alarms and school runs and after school clubs and the chaos that comes from getting everyone up and dressed and out the door and then the reverse of that at the end of the day. The break from this dose of daily madness is good for all of us.
As much as I dread the summer holidays and worry about it all in the build-up, I look forward to it at the same time and now it’s over, I feel a bit sad about it all.
The truth is, I’ll miss my little sidekicks. I’ve only just got used to them being with me most days and from today that’s not the case anymore. I’ll miss being on the beach long past the usual bedtime and staying up far too late to watch films. I’ll miss hearing them and their little mates through the window when they are all tearing up and down the street on bikes and skates and generally causing chaos. I’ll miss slow mornings and not having to be anywhere and watching their excitement when we set off to explore a new park or do something a bit different.
Most of this will still happen though, here and there and on weekends, so maybe this sadness I’m feeling is due to the fact that there will come a time where I don’t get any of this and that time isn’t that far away.
I’ll only get finite summer holidays where they are young enough to be this excited over, let’s face it, the same old swings and climbing frames just in a different field, and only a few more where they’ll still hold my hand on the walk home.
There’ll only be a few more long, sunny evenings where I get to carry a sleepy kid back to the car or where we all have a lie-in and spend a lazy morning in front of the tele. As much as I get bored of nagging them about brushing teeth and the daily wrestle to try and get at least a squirt of suncream on them, there is a time coming where they wont need that and I’ll be out of a job.
And yeah, I get that I’ll have different dad related jobs and they’ll always need me, but that doesn’t mean much to me in this moment. Change is coming and while I can accept it, I don’t have to like it.
There’s something about brand new, oversized uniforms with the creases in and how they swallow up tiny little humans that really drives this home. That standard photo by the front door on the first day of term signifies them stepping out that door as kids and stepping back through it as young adults as if no time has passed in between.
The shift between the seasons definitely adds something to my melancholy around this time of year and I say that as someone who loves the autumn months, it’s without doubt my favourite season. I love the colours and the subtle drop in temperature, the blueness of the sky and the way that everything starts to look as if it’s in HD. I like hoodies and beanies and wrapping up a bit and the change of pace and tone is nice after the speed and brashness of the summer.
But I still feel that shift deeply, the end of one thing and the start of the next. The low-key excitement of a new chapter and the matching sadness at the closing of the last one.
Acknowledging and adjusting to these changes is something that we don’t do very well as modern humans. Every other species adapts in some way as the seasons change and they mix it up a bit but we just keep on pushing. As we move towards the end of the year, all the other animals on planet earth will start to prepare for winter, incrementally slowing down to match the darker mornings and longer nights, building bigger nests and stashing food, while the closer we get to this is getting the first few decorations on the shelves in Home Bargains. Over the winter, all of nature shuts down and waits for spring to make the big moves while we just carry-on full pelt and make the big moves on the 1st of January when we try and completely change our lifestyles and entire personalities in one single swoop.
We are the only species that does this and we are completely out of sync with the rest of nature and that has to have an effect on our mental health, both individually and collectively. If we, as a society and a species, could reconnect with the original design and find some synergy with the natural phases of the year I think it would do us the world of good in a myriad of ways.
So perhaps that’s what I’m feeling now. The start of a shift pulling me in one direction while the unwritten rules and regulations of modern life push me in another.
Watching my kids grow and start to experience the world without me kind of brings that home a little harder than usual. The change between the two little kids running round in circles on the beach on a sunny, summer evening is just too stark a contrast to the scenes in the playground at pick up this afternoon. The regimented lines and the forced order of things feels out of whack with the world around us and this reminds me that I’m going to have a little less say in what happens next.
I know that this will pass, same as the seasons do and same as the school year does, so for now I’m going to sit with it for a bit. And maybe make a little sense of it all and hopefully that will help when we go through it all again next year even though I can’t imagine a time when I’m ready for any of it.
And in the meantime, there’s tomorrow’s bags to pack and uniforms to be sponged and ironed and missing reading logs to find and a bath to run and an argument over a tooth brush to be had and a stand off at bedtime to be navigated. So, I suppose I’m not quite out of a job just yet.
