“Oh dear gawd yes!” I screamed at my computer screen. “Yes! Absolutely yes!” I wasn’t watching saucy videos. No. I was in an online parenting forum. And the lines of text were swimming in front of my eyes.
“The December/January school holidays are too long,” wrote my new queen, Bec.
It makes total sense. I felt ridiculous for not realising it sooner.
“The kids are more than ready to go back to school,” Bec continued. “My kids do go to school holiday programs but there’s limits there too. Honestly, I’m exhausted and we need routine back.”
I’ve bumped into lots of parents in the past six weeks (lord have mercy, SIX, it feels like 20). But now, as we come to the magical week that heralds the end of the summer “break”, the small talk has shifted. There’s no “beautiful weather we’re having” or “who do you support in the footy”?
Oh no, no, no.
There’s only one topic on every parent’s or grandparent’s or carer’s lips. “Are you ready for the kids to go back to school?”
Whenever I ask this question, there’s a pattern to what I witness next. The other parent laughs nervously. Then their eyes glaze over. They stare off wistfully into the distance as though remembering a deep-seated pain in the core of their being. The sort of pain that stays with you for years to come. I can almost hear the strains of a Stradivarius violin. Then they snap back to reality. Their eyes regain focus. Another nervous laugh.
“Oh yes, we’re definitely ready for school to start.”
Then the guilt sets in. And it’s usually identified by the following phrase: “I love my kids, but …”
Let me put your mind at rest here. The kids are over it. They’re done. They’re ready for school. They’ve had enough of us nagging them to turn their screens off. To clean their rooms. Dragging them around some museum they’ve already seen before. “Lord have mercy, SIX weeks of this crap,” they’re thinking. But the reason school holidays should be shorter isn’t just for the sanity of all concerned. It’s also a matter of practicality.
Most people work. Have you seen interest rates lately? And most people who work get four weeks’ holiday a year. The Christmas holidays alone are six weeks. You do the maths.
Unless you have a parent who stays home, or a grandparent or someone else who can help out, you’re looking at holiday programs to get you through. The programs in our area cost around $70-$100 a day before the childcare subsidy kicks in – and you’re paying every day you need to work and don’t have help. It’s not a cheap exercise.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids and I love spending time with them. And my kids (so they tell me) feel the same. As a family we’ve had some brilliant fun over the break, with short road trips, lots of beach time, museums, galleries, shows and fairs. But I’m tired of trying to find ways to entertain my kids in a wholesome and educational fashion.
It’s been even worse over this particular break with weather that would make you think the entire climate is changing, making the challenge of finding things to do even harder. Can you believe there are people who do this for a living? They’re called teachers. And we should be paying them more.
So what’s the solution? I don’t know. I’m not a teacher. I’m no rocket surgeon. But I know this.
When my beautiful son ran off across the playground this morning to join his little grade two mates and trade Pokémon cards or whatever the hell they do that gets them so excited to see each other, he didn’t look back once.
He was happy to be back with his mates, his teacher and in his routine. He was relieved. And so was I, and every other parent on the school grounds. And when he got home and we asked him how his day was he said it was the “greatest day ever”.
We’ll all sleep more soundly tonight.
Isabelle Oderberg is a journalist, editor, writer and media professional. Her first book is Hard to Bear: Investigating the science and silence of miscarriage
