Why Most Parents Are Quietly Relieved When Kids Go Back To School (And That’s Okay)
Last week, I stood in the elementary school parking lot after dropping my son off for his first day of third grade, mopping coffee off my wrist from a leaky travel lid, when another mom I know from playgroup pulled me aside. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no other parents were within earshot, then whispered, “Don’t judge me, but I am so happy they’re back in school.”
I nodded. I’d been thinking the exact same thing, but hadn’t said it out loud to anyone but my husband. The last two weeks of summer break had been a blur of sibling fights over who got the blue popsicle, 11 requests for snacks a day, three canceled playdates in a row, and an hour I’ll never get back digging through couch cushions for a missing Lego Millennium Falcon part that turned up in the dog’s bed. I work part-time as a paraeducator at the same school, so I’d spent the week before setting up classrooms and prepping reading groups, and half my work from home that last week of summer had been done in 15-minute chunks between breaking up fights and driving kids to the pool. I was tired.
A lot of the Instagram posts that popped up that first week were full of tearful captions about how our babies are growing up too fast, how we’ll miss having them home all day. That’s a valid feeling, for sure. I cried for an hour after dropping my oldest off for kindergarten five years ago. My neighbor whose youngest started this year sat on her porch after drop off crying, and I brought her chocolate chip cookies and didn’t say a word about how she should get used to the quiet. Not everyone feels the same thing, and there’s no right way to feel.
But no one posts about the relief. In the teacher work room the day before school started, the other staff were laughing about the texts we’d gotten from parents over the previous weekend: one dad wrote “I’ve run out of activities and I’m letting them watch too much TV, please send help”, a mom of two middle schoolers texted her kid’s homeroom teacher “I can’t wait for you to have them for seven hours a day”. The guilt hanging over all these messages was obvious. Everyone feels like they’re supposed to be sad, that being happy your kids are back means you don’t love them enough.
That’s the myth I’ve been pushing back on for years, as both a parent and someone who works with kids every day. Relief doesn’t equal rejection. If you’re a working parent, any kind of working parent, summer break means you’re splitting your attention between your job and entertaining your kids 24/7 for 10 weeks. That’s unsustainable. You’re going to end up burnt out, snappy, and not present when you do get time with your kids anyway.
This year, when my son asked me straight out as we walked into school “Are you happy I’m going back?” I didn’t lie. I said “I’m happy you get to see your best friend every day and do art in your new classroom, and I’m happy I can get all my work done without stopping for snacks every 10 minutes. That means I’ll have more energy to play Codenames with you and your sister after dinner tonight.” He thought that made perfect sense, and ran off to line up with his friends. That’s the kind of honesty kids respond to, far more than a forced sad face that they can tell is fake anyway.
The practical side of this, that I’ve seen both at home and at work, is that everyone benefits from the routine of school. Kids don’t just go back to learn math and reading. They go back to have their own space, their own friendships, their own routines outside of being with their parents all day. I’ve seen that the first two weeks of school, the kids who adjust fastest are the ones whose parents aren’t frazzled from two months of nonstop caregiving. If you got three hours of quiet work time in this morning, you’re way more likely to listen patiently when your kid comes home and rants about how their lunch line was too slow or their math homework is too hard.
I have three mom friends in a group chat, and we made a rule a couple years ago: the first person to say they’re ready for school to start before August 15 owes the rest of us iced coffee. It’s a small thing, but it gives us permission to say what we actually feel, instead of hiding it behind fake sentimental posts. If you’re feeling relieved right now, the first thing you can do is text that one friend who you know feels the same way. You don’t have to shout it from the rooftops, but getting it out takes the guilt away.
The second thing is don’t shame other parents for how they feel. If a friend says she’s heartbroken her kid is gone all day, don’t tell her she should be glad for the quiet. If someone admits they’re counting down the minutes to the first bell, don’t give them a speech about how quickly time flies. We all have different lives, different situations, different capacities. A parent who stays home full-time with three little kids is going to need that break more than a parent who works three days a week and has help the rest. That’s just how it is.
This morning, my son ran into school without even turning around to wave, too busy showing his new Pokemon binder to his friend. I walked back to my car, finished my coffee, and went to the grocery store. I walked the entire produce aisle without anyone begging for a lollipop or fighting over who got to push the cart. It was quiet. It was even a little boring. And I didn’t feel guilty for enjoying it. In a couple months, I’ll be over the homework battles and the early mornings and counting down to winter break. That’s just the rhythm of it. Some days you want all the time in the world with your kids, and some days you want a few hours of quiet. There’s nothing wrong with that.
Please indicate: Thinking In Educating » Why Most Parents Are Quietly Relieved When Kids Go Back To School (And That’s Okay)