Writings by me

Here we are almost at the end of the summer holidays, and the five words that sum it up for me are ‘make the most of it.’ As in, did I? Did the kids have the BEST SUMMER HOLIDAY EVER?

Firstly, those five words are seemingly harmless, however, there’s nothing like a casual ‘make the most of it,’ remark thrown in to instil pressure in parenting. They are often said in the most well-meaning ways to point out how lucky we are in whatever parenting phase we are in and how we really should be enjoying every minute because they grow up so quickly. And we really are extremely lucky to be parents.

However, far too much of my parenting is spent obsessing over those five words. This is how my internal monologue goes- ‘this person must think I’m lazy or ungrateful because they think I need reminding. Perhaps that means I am NOT making the most of it, perhaps what I am doing currently is not enough because I am apparently not ‘making the most of it.’ I MUST ENJOY THESE YOUNGER YEARS – why aren’t I enjoying it AT ALL TIMES? I am so ungrateful/lazy/basically the worst mum ever’ and thus the cycle continues.

Deflated and fed up, I then proceed to not ‘make the most of it.’

It’s the parenting equivalent of YOLO. Ok I get it, the sentiment is right; we do in fact only live once but that life is a lot more complex and decision-making needs a lot more than a fun-loving ‘YOLO’ shouted at you. Equally, it’s hard to make the most of it when you’re working, keeping house and getting the odd bit of self-care in.

Making the most of it also means different things to different people. If we are talking the ‘socially acceptable’ way to make the most of it, we are probably failing before we even start. This summer holiday, we did not swim with dolphins, we didn’t eat al fresco every day and we definitely did not do fun holiday projects, learn another language or visit every major city in the UK for a fun-filled, yet educational day out.

But hey how about what we did do?

Like not getting up until 9am most mornings, watching Disney films in the morning, visiting Combe Martin Dinosaur and Wildlife park (we are well and truly in the dinosaur phase and loving it!), visiting with family, eating far too much ice cream and generally lazing about in the sun-cloud-shine. Which, now we are all heading back to school and work after the pandemic, we don’t get to do very often. So yeah actually, we did make the most of it, just in our own way. Hope you did too.