Screw you, Summer 2020. The summer of closures, the summer of orders. I'm sick of it all. (Do we all feel better now? I do.)
No, I didn't sign either of my kids up for virtual camps to keep them occupied through this shutdown we all now live in. No, I don't let them squander full days away on devices and video games just to give myself some quiet time (we still have a two-hour per day TV/devices/games limit), but I am determined to conquer this summer like no other before … because this is OUR chance, parents.
Our chance to simplify this now weird world. Our chance to reset and revamp what we've been mindlessly doing for far too long. Our chance to take back summer breaks. For good.
A few years ago, I wrote a personal piece that ticked off a lot of my followers — about how anti-summer camp I've been for a long time. I wrote it out of love — for my kids, for not having any more patience (or budget) to pay skyrocketing prices for one week of "fun," for a call for all of us to return to lazy, grounded living in the name of mental health.
The current health crisis forced us to buckle down and learn how to cook more meals at home in the spring and it's now demanding to figure out how the heck to have a summer that truly matters for the long run.
“Which online camps are your kids doing this year?” friends ask me.
“None,” I say, "I'm not going to pay big bucks for them to sit in front of a computer and drain their brains into attention disorders and irritable moods on account of creating something to fill their time when it's gorgeous outside."
I'm really trying to accept summer 2020 as our official chance to let our kids summer break like we did. No excuses. No FOMO. No worries about whether we washed the official camp T-shirt for the next day. It's our chance to thankfully save a hell of a lot of money, do what we need and want when we need and want, and to shamelessly chill the eff out, even if the world's cancellation of all things happy is starting to get the best of us.
I can't help but think about all those "Why can't our kids have summers like us?" essays that inevitably rolled around each summer prior to this one. Like most of my peers, here’s what I did on my childhood summer breaks: I watched TV. I did cartwheels on the lawn with my sister. I spent all day in the pools of neighborhood friends and cousins. I made homemade snow cones with this cheap ice-shaving machine my mom bought us and she let us put as much syrup on them as we wanted.
I remember feeling free. I remember laughing. I remember happiness. No stress. No schedule. We woke up in the morning and did what we felt like that day. My mom would give us random academic worksheets to keep our brains from completely shriveling up. Throw in a three-hour drive family road trip vacation for a few days and that was our summer. Summer was a break for everyone — perhaps most importantly, for my mom.
As a parent now, I know that lazy time wasn’t a loss — it helped me learn independence, develop coping skills (i.e. inventing something to do if I felt "bored") and also spend precious time at home with my family, which bonded us in the best way without even realizing it. Just because kids are booked in back-to-back activities or are constantly entertained by others doesn’t necessarily mean all is absolutely right in the world.
Let's use this unprecedented time to reset ourselves and give our kids a version of the kind of childhoods most of us had — childhoods that added up to self-sufficiency and contented days discovered in our own yards.
Every teacher and child development expert I've interviewed tells me the same tragic fact: Kids are becoming increasingly brainwashed into "being on a scheduled program" and have no idea how to self-regulate, how to self-start, how to entertain and/or think for themselves unless someone else is telling them how and when to play what. Shameful. Sad. Dare I say, PATHETIC. (Caps because I mean it.) And don't get me started about how serious screentime downsides of increased anxiety, behavior disorders, and sleep problems conveniently vanished from all conversations a few months ago.
Right now, this is us: A one-hour weekly dance class in July, continued weekly piano lessons, about 20 minutes of reading per day and random math facts and learning worksheets that take about 30 minutes tops between breakfast and lunch. The rest of our time is "Go outside or create something to do, girls." Sometimes we're in swimsuits or pajamas all day. Simple.
Summer 2020 is turning out to serve my selfish need to further bond with my daughters and for them to bond with me (normal conflicts and disagreements included). I’m hoping this intensified time spent together, at the ages they are now (9 and 8), will set us all up for deeper, mutual understanding into their teen years and beyond.
As frustrating as all-things-cancelled is proving to be, let's try to use this time that I hope never ever repeats itself in our history again. Because the only way this mom is staying motivated is to stick it to all overscheduled summers past, with hopes to reinvent our future. It's our chance. For good.
