School holidays test a parent’s sanity
Ibelieve I speak for most working parents when I wish for a speedy end to the school holidays. mean, there are only so many ways to keep children busy for six weeks, not to mention the financial cost and emotional toll to boot.
And if you’re anything like my family, both parents will be working and your annual leave does not nearly cover the duration of all 12 weeks’ worth of holidays during the school year.
For example, one of my colleagues is about to take leave for the next week while his wife works because, he says: ‘‘It’s my turn. You know how it goes with these long school holidays’’.
His story is not unique as I’ve heard of many working parents using up their annual leave to take turns looking after their children. This most likely results in some families never spending an entire holiday together due to playing babysitting musical chairs.
However, I was lucky in that I could ‘‘import’’ my in-laws for a couple of months to babysit. This saved me tonnes of money but I’m not sure whether I’m going to survive being holed up in the same space as my mother-in-law for much longer.
So are there any easy solutions? I can’t really think of any short of winning Lotto and becoming fulltime stay-at-home parents. Life is expensive and unfortunately, you can only sacrifice so much before you place your family’s financial security in jeopardy.
But that said, I have taken up fishing with my kids which has resulted in us getting out to the beach much more these past few weeks than ever before.
Fishing has also taught me patience, something I never really had, and it has made me relax. And I believe this will be much needed in the coming news year as we deal with world leaders referring to Third World countries as s...holes and the increase in natural disasters due to the impact of global warming.
I guess 2018 will have many surprises in store for all of us starting with the school leavers receiving their NCEA results on Tuesday before they head off to university or their first jobs.
Nonetheless, I believe we have to always strive to be the best parents we can be for our children.
To quote Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, who writes about being a solo dad on page nine: ‘‘At the end of the day, no matter what the circumstances are, the only thing that matters is your kid. Parents will disagree over things, but the one thing everyone agrees on is how much you love the child.’’