Parents to this time of year: Enough, already
Are you done? Spent? Have you sprinted through the past few months mindlessly shuttling from practices to games to birthday parties to endof-year celebrations while shoving food into your maw, driving a carpool like some kind of deranged PacMan? Oh, and did you remember the tri-corner hat for Revolutionary War Day at school? I feel you.
Yesterday, a newsroom colleague came up to me and said: “Can you please write about how tiring the past few months have been?” Then another colleague pulled me aside to share a viral Instagram post from MSNBC anchor Steph Ruhle: “I’ve had three graduations in my life: grammar school, high school, and college. When did we progress into moving on, moving up, thrusting forward, grand slam graduation jamborees and ceremonies for every possible grade, class, program, school, and sport? It’s awesome, but it’s a lot.”
It’s a lot, and didn’t this year feel even worse? Meanwhile, there are all the memes — New Yorker cartoons mostly — about the bliss of canceled plans, staying in, avoiding people. There are movements dedicated to self-care and casting productivity aside for the simple sake of mere being. It’s as though we all yearn to hide, embalmed in weighted blankets watching Netflix, but can’t. Or can we? Where’s the balance? Is the true nature of parenthood merely a threadbare dangle between desperate introversion and blind obligation?
It felt that way this spring, and every single parent I’ve spoken to says the same. Maybe it’s some kind of post-COVID compensation: We’re busier now than ever, or perhaps we’re out of practice. But maybe society has also just shifted and we’ve allowed it to happen, shouldering more and more because that’s what’s expected and it’s what other people are doing. Are you going to be the first one in the neighborhood to pull your kid from baseball or to refuse to participate in the science fair? Saying no might be noble, but it isn’t practical.
It’s hard, too, because the literature around productivity and selfcare focuses on drilling down on what’s truly important and sloughing off the rest. But when it comes to your kids, everything feels important. You can’t just opt out of finding a white T-shirt for tie-dye day, and who’s going to blow off the all-important K-2 choral jubilee, even if it does fall smack in the middle of work. Everything matters.
But how much?
Writing this, on the last day of school, I truly don’t know. I do know that I’m looking forward to a week or two with absolutely no plans until my kids start camp. Yes, they will be on screens too much while I work. They also will have to cope with the cardinal woe of being bored — remember being bored? I do! — for a few days before the next set of events begins.
What can change next year? I’m not sure. Maybe schools can institute an “Everything Week,” where all the Important Events are crammed into one frenetic spree instead of spread out a series of small paper cuts. Maybe we should all just suck it up and be grateful: to have messy lives, places to go, a full calendar instead of a lonesomely empty one. Maybe we’re all martyrs who secretly enjoy this ping-pong lifestyle because it makes us feel important and needed, and we’ll miss it once our kids are out of the house and we need to get a dog.
But on this, the last day of school for my own kids — and perhaps yours, too — I wish you a restful summer without a scramble for obscure costumes, three-hour oboe concerts, never-ending playoff games featuring children who, sorry to say, never will make it to the majors, and maybe even meals that can be eaten with more than one hand. We’ve earned it. See you at the camp bus stop. (You did fill out the bus form ... right?)