Okay, look. I don’t know who decided kids need to be constantly entertained to avoid boredom, but I’d like to have a word. Because somewhere along the way, parenting went from “drag your kid around to run all of your mind-bogglingly BORING errands” to “run yourself into the ground trying to keep your child’s dopamine levels at Disneyland status, 24/7.”
When I was a kid, “summer vacation” meant you were basically a hostage to your parents’ weekend plans. Grocery store? You were mom’s wing man. Garden center? Hope you like sniffing fertilizer! And if you were lucky, maybe there’d be a sad box of broken-down, mismatched toys in the corner of the hair salon your mom frequented.
That was your entertainment.
And here’s the wild part, if we complained, we’d find ourselves with MORE to complain about. Because the truth of it was that our moms were NOT interested in our thoughts on the matter.
Absolutely not. If we whined about being bored, we got handed a rag and told to dust the baseboards – the original iPad. And oh, would you look at that! Suddenly, we were very good at entertaining ourselves.
Fast forward to now, and we’ve all lost our collective minds.
Recently, I saw a TikTok post from comedian @mrjackskipper that really nailed it: “Nowadays, you gotta do what your kids wanna do. But when I was growing up, you just did what your parents wanted. You had to make your own entertainment.”
Point. Blank. Period.
I’ve spent my summer carting kids to playdates, to the beach, to the trampoline gym, to pool parties, to the mall, to their friends houses, and all back again. Because summer no longer means a break from school for kids and parents.
Now it means being your kids’ entertainment b*tch, on top of already being their snack b*tch, their laundry b*tch, their transportation b*tch, and their cleaning b*tch.
@mrjackskipper Am I right? #relatable #parenting #90s ♬ original sound – Jack Skipper
And all of this for your own flesh and blood to look you dead in the eye and tell you, “We’re bored! We never get to do anything fun!”
I stopped my kids mid-rant the last time they launched into a “woe is us” tirade.
I went ahead and hit them with my mom’s classic line “Oh really? You’re bored? Because I’ve got a sink full of dishes, 4 loads of laundry that need folding, and a lawn that needs mowing. You still bored?”
You’ve never seen two kids disappear faster in your life. Suddenly, Netflix sounded like the thrill ride of the century! Amazing how “boredom” evaporates when you dangle chores in front of their faces.
Parents, we’ve forgotten that boredom is not a disease.
It’s a rite of passage. Back in the day, my summers were 10% fun outings and 90% me staring at the ceiling until I invented a game that usually annoyed my parents.
My brother and I would have to stop fighting to build booby traps out of string and stuffed animals.
We turned empty boxes into rocket ships.
We played outside and rode bikes until dark. And thank goodness I did because that’s where my sense of imagination blossomed.
Now? We’re so busy scheduling “meaningful childhood experiences” that we’ve robbed kids of the magic of nothing to do.
And listen, I get it. I want to give my kids happy summers too.
But happy doesn’t mean running ourselves ragged and going broke from non-stop activities. Sometimes the best gift we can give our kids is a little space to be bored and the chance to figure out how to entertain themselves without us acting like unpaid cruise directors. The gift of boredom.
So let’s bring back the old ways. More Saturdays wandering Lowe’s. More errands where the only “activity” is trying not to knock over a display of paint cans. More “Sorry, kid, you’re along for the ride.”
Because if we survived it and came out mildly weird but very creative, so will they.
And who knows? Maybe one day they’ll even look back fondly and say, “Remember that summer we froze our butts off in the freezer section of Stop & Shop while mom shopped for frozen broccoli?”
That’s called character-building, sweetheart. You’re welcome.
