Summer Is Almost Over and You Blew It
I'm here to affirm you: you're absolutely right, you did a terrible job.
It’s August. School is looming around the corner, and you are looking back at the last few months of heat and humidity1 with feelings of… is it regret? Is it exhaustion? No, it’s definitely guilt. Because this is number [Something] of the Only Eighteen Summers That You Get, and you blew it, mama.
Go back and scroll through Instagram again and really let it soak in. Those extravagant, magical-core-memory vacations you couldn’t afford? Yeah, your kids are definitely going to resent it forever. Their frontal lobes are already fully formed at this tender age and the injustices they feel over not spending a week at Legoland will remain with them until they unpack it all someday in very expensive therapy. You are the worst mom ever. The Lego you actually built with them, the hours you spent working on the bond between the two of you as you tried to replicate the Millenium Falcon? A poor imitation. Plato’s cave of shadows. Don’t think about the light that lit up your child’s face when the final pieces clicked; remember only that you lost the instructions and had to resort to YouTube.
Or maybe you did go on a big exciting vacation! Good for you or whatever. But let’s dwell on what went wrong, shall we? You didn’t buy the souvenir they wanted, your sunscreen reapplication was lousy, the llama-shaped pool floatie sprang a leak and the roller coaster they’d been planning to ride for weeks was closed for repairs—which is of course your fault, you conniving grandmaster of the universe. The effort you put into getting every possible positive experience out of every penny, the sleep you sacrificed, the steps you walked and cranky children you carried until they fell asleep nestled into your shoulder are NOTHING compared to the fact that you wouldn’t buy the Cotton Candy Reese’s Pieces Sour Patch Kids x Mr. Beast Mega Milkshake.
While we’re at it, the heat? The swamp pit into which at least half the world is quickly descending, topped by a heat dome bent on trapping humidity to kill us all? Fun fact: that’s also your fault. And if you kept your kids indoors and let them watch screens, I’ve got even worse news! The time they spent rotting their brains in front of sloppy cartoons, (because girl please you KNOW it wasn’t all educational) completely negated all the books you read aloud, the puzzles you did, the songs you sang along to, the times you took them to the museum or the pool or a friend’s house. That’s actually how math works, which you would know if you spent less time in front of Frozen II and more time in front of a neutrally-painted abacus.
I know some people might be like “hey you guys went to the library a lot, that’s great,” but you know better. You’re probably thinking about all the inane Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig junior novelizations that came home with you. And you’re absolutely right: those books are not reading. When you snuggle on the couch with your slightly sticky little grubs and let them lean their sweaty heads against your armpit, full-body-relaxing to the sound of your voice reading aloud, it actually means nothing because it’s not a title from the 100 Essentials Before Kindergarten list, which you promptly lost as soon as you stuck the pamphlet in your library bag.
Remember what summer was like when you were a kid? You were outside constantly, the sprinkler and some whiffleballs were all you needed for fun, the popsicles were sweeter, the sun was less forbidding, your mom was always there and never ever yelled at you. Why can’t you give your kids the same experience? Your memories of your own childhood are one hundred percent accurate and not at all colored by erstwhile naïveté or the ravages of time. As we’ve already established, you and you alone are in charge of climate change. And that job you say you have to do? We all know if you really loved your kids you would simply do that pointless work at night instead of sleeping so you could spend your days in unconditional service to your children’s needs. Oh, your kids went to day care? Where they are lovingly nurtured by child development professionals and given time to grow and learn and play with their peers among toys they don’t have at home? You’re a monster for that and I hope you know it.
The clock’s ticking, mama. Summer will be gone before you know it. Maybe your kids started school this week and it’s already technically over. Did you talk to your children about the twelve essential topics for a back-to-school heart-to-heart? I don’t mean those dumb little conversations in the car or at the dinner table or while you’re trying to yank a wet bathing suit over their head. That’s just the stuff life is made of, and the fact that you constantly care so damn much, even as you break up fights and diffuse tantrums and lie beside them as they refuse to fall asleep at 10 pm, is not what we’re talking about here. Those Big Little Feelings reels you saved for later are still sitting unwatched while you, the safe landing place, absorbed the emotional storm your kid unleashed so many times.
Did you even go to the playground? The splash pad? The children’s museum? The kite festival? What, you sent your kids to summer camp where they romped through a schedule of fantastic activities they’ll probably remember forever and ineffectively attempt to replicate for their own children? Wow, okay. Lame.
Or maybe summer camp wasn’t in the cards for you but you still had to work, or to take classes, or constantly feed the new baby, and so your kids played video games. Gross. They’ll hate that forever too. Kids loathe screen time and resent being permitted extra access to it. Maybe they’ll bond with their friends over the games they played, or be inspired to write fanfiction, or become a game developer themselves someday. And it’ll be all your fault.
Think about this as you prepare breakfast for your kids, that meticulous balance of nutrition and taste and safe foods and quick-prep that you keep in your mind always. Mull over your shortcomings as you sort through the t-shirts they outgrew and scrub pee droplets off the floor around the toilet and order a new set of popsicle molds online. Feel the weight of your transgressions as you make room on the refrigerator for yet another sheet of construction paper covered with Magic Marker mythical creatures and the words “I <3 Mommy.” Ruminate as you make space in your phone storage by deleting duplicates of the hundreds of photos you took of your kids in every iteration of joy and frustration and sleepiness and licking ice cream and perpetual motion. Remember how you said you were going to make a sensory water table back in June? You didn’t. And that undid everything.
So yeah, you hit the nail on the head. You failed. It’s ridiculous that anyone allowed you to even do this in the first place. Go ahead and turn in your mom card. On your way out, though, can you stop and give the kids a hug and kiss before they go to bed? They keep asking for you.
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