Blaise Tapp: Parents – who’s happy the summer is officially over?
And just like that, it is over. The summer holidays that is. If you listen very carefully you will hear a collective sigh of relief from millions of parents as their little darlings finally go back to the classroom from this week.
My own mother used to talk gleefully of ‘doing handstands’ when the six week slogfest used to come to an end in the ’80s and ’90s. She wasn’t alone then and that sentiment is still shared by many today.
Keeping bright young minds occupied for any extended period of time is challenge, especially if you are not a dab hand with doubled sided tape and a pair of safety sissors. Doing it for a month and a half can feel like a task from Challenge Anneka. Without the jumpsuit and helicopter. Younger readers, ask your parents.
The temptation of course is to let kids do their own thing but that would involve a screen and sweets and as much as any of us want an easy life, allowing eyes to turn square and teeth to fall out isn’t really an option. The trouble is, once you’ve visited the local park three times in the first week of the holidays, pretty much everything else costs you cold, hard cash.
Parents have always lived in fear of the words ‘Mum/Dad, I’m bored’ but in an age of tedious family influencers and WhatsApp group chats that amplify one-upmanship to new levels, boredom is no longer an option in many walks of life.
Holiday clubs are now a booming industry – if you don’t time it right you can be queuing for 20 minutes to book them in for a day of crab football and origami as parents converge on school halls and sports centres at precisely the same time so they can make the 9am Zoom call.
Most of these places don't come cheap, either – 40 years ago we were sent down the local rec to occupy ourselves with half a badminton set and a semi-inflated football. But it did cost £3 for an entire day of not being a pain in the neck at home.
The cost of these clubs, however, is nothing compared to the cost of taking a family of four anywhere in late July or the whole of August, when it becomes eye-wateringly expensive. Holiday companies and airlines merrily tell us it is market forces that a week away can cost more than double in the school break than it does at any other time of the year. Anybody with school age children will call it a modern day racket that needs to be ended, although this is a vain hope.
British parents, however, can count themselves lucky – my daughter's Irish friend returned to school this week for the first time since late May.
We're now just finished our 14th summer of school holidays and, believe it or not, I’m sad that this one is over. The youngest Tapp has said goodbye to primary school and it won’t be long until he no longer wants us both to be chief Red Coats and plan out his entire summer.
The prospect of having both kids entertain themselves isn’t one I relish. Happy the summer is officially over? Not me.