Viewing youngsters as pound signs will rankle with parents

DO you remember how long the school summer holidays lasted when you were a kid?

I don’t mean their actual duration — just short of two months — but how it felt like years and years of empty days waiting to be filled.

That included (and you’ll have your own memories) playing for hours in parks, whole days at the tennis club, teenage makeovers with anything glittery, shopping trips with pals, walks along the beach and feeling like an adult poring over your teen magazine.

Of course, you needed a few quid along the way — mainly for toasties, ice poles and Kwenchy Kups.

Summer classes (like the one my mum found in a church hall in Lochee after driving round Dundee searching for somewhere to put me so she could work) must have cost money.

But these days it’s all about money.

Join a sports club and pay monthly — and cough up for every class your child attends.

They can be wonderful places, developing sports skills from an early age.

But not if you don’t have the money to spare.

Go to a kids’ soft play centre and pay a fiver per child — add in your pot of tea, a small lunch and bright blue icy drinks all small people love and wham bam, you’ve spent £30 or £40.

One grandparent at such a soft play area sipped his coffee and shook his head.

“We’d love to bring the grandkids here every day during the holidays but we can’t. We’d be bankrupt,” he said.

Sports camps seem different. You pay a fair whack but your child is entertained, educated and run ragged all day, an alternative to school.

And not all soft play areas are extortionate — in some pubs in Dundee they are free or cost only a couple of pounds and staff are happy with you buying drink or food, with no pressure applied.

But the centres which have your family as a captive audience after charging entry and then make money, money, money from you all day long?

It’s wonderful any of these places exist. They are the saviour of mums and dads on a rainy day.

But seeing children simply as pound signs will eventually rankle with parents.

And we’re the ones who keep those businesses alive.