There are two great shocks of parenthood . The first is that “Friday night” ceases to mean anything. Babies and toddlers don’t know that Saturday mornings are for dozing and slobbing about.
They will continue, as usual, to loudly wake up throughout the night, or at best, rise at 5.45am, appear spookily at your nose, and then mash Blue Bunny into your face. The second is that “summer holidays” becomes a phrase you dread.
When you were young and carefree, the summer holidays were full of dazzling fun at best or simply No School at worst. As soon as you have children, unless you are one of those outlandishly privileged types with a regular beach-side rental and many “cousins” for your children to tumble about with, the summer holidays loom like a prison sentence. It’s not the children’s fault.
They don’t mean to be so annoying, stressful, constantly bored and hungry . They are simply running the programme “child” on their OS and you just have to wait until it finishes. Ctrl + Alt + Delete won’t work, I’m afraid.
No, the kids are blameless in all this. The malfunction lies with society. First, human beings are not designed to look after their kids on their own.
But in our post-industrial, atomised society, that tends to be what happens. With schools and nurseries shut for the break, friends and any smattering of hired help vanishing for weeks on end, it’s just you and them. It’s as hard work as weekends, only it goes on for six weeks straight.
And .