Ulcer-inducing summer childcare: It seems like the camps begin at 9am but end at 9.15am with a 45-minute commute

I welcome the school holidays with a soupçon of the same excitement I felt as a child. The endless summer days stretched out before me: climbing trees, burying whatever came free in the box of cornflakes and calling it a “time capsule”, wading in streams, getting chased by bulls. Precious memories of freedom and wholesome peril, and hours without any adult supervision.

My friends who have children largely do not share my sepia-toned vision of the summer months, because if they leave their charges to wander for hours in bull-infested fields, any number of authorities might have to get involved. Many working parents are faced with the seemingly ulcer-inducing task of patching together a childcare quilt of camps, grandparents, play dates, half days and Zoom meetings to ensure that nobody drinks bleach or becomes impaled on a horn or a fender.

‘I’m not doing this all summer,’ my beleaguered friend cried, already worn down to the point of counting Frubes as one of the five-a-day

Modern parenting (and teaching) leaves me shook at the best of times, from the class WhatsApp groups, to something called SeeSaw which seems to enable 24-hour contact between school and home, to the expectation that there’s a present under every layer of paper in a game of Pass the Parcel. Everyone is expected to be “on” at all times and while safeguarding is at the heart of most of it, it seems like we’ve created a world where parents are supposed to have fulfilling, full-time careers while also spending all day, every day with their children, making memories and protecting them from the treacherous world we’ve built for them.

The summer camps that many working parents depend on for entertainment and safekeeping in July and August seem to both giveth and taketh away. Anecdotally it seems like the camps – usually sport, performance, or art and craft based – begin at 9am but then end promptly at 9.15am, while also requiring a 45-minute commute. Friends have told me how grateful they are for the camps, through gnashed teeth and clumps of torn out hair, because at least they fill two out of the eight weeks of endless summer.

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Those who end up at home with their kids tell of a constant kitchen battle. Requests for snacks begin approximately seven minutes after breakfast has ended and continue until sundown, which of course occurs in Ireland at about 1am in summer months. Regular meals go uneaten, despite claims by the children to be in starvation mode from 7am to just before lunchtime and then again from 1.10pm to 5.25pm. Any food offered in the lunch or dinner windows is rejected as if it is tainted with Deadly Nightshade. I witnessed an early summer meltdown recently where a roast chicken sandwich had been requested by a child only for the chicken to be rejected when the lunch was proffered. “I’m not doing this all summer,” my beleaguered friend cried, already worn down to the point of counting Frubes as one of the five-a-day.

I’m consistently baffled by how many barriers to safe and happy development there are for children in this country

I don’t for one second begrudge the teachers their well-earned time off. They deserve it, what with all the SeeSawing and Aladdining they do during the school year. However, much like the pandemic pulled the classroom safety net out from under families while parents were expected to carry on working full time, the summer is anything but a holiday. Even if they want to take time off to spend at home, they’re battling for coveted dates with colleagues who’ve also spent a small fortune on an all-inclusive in Tenerife with a kids’ club their children will almost certainly refuse to entertain. At least they might eat three square meals (of exclusively chips) every day though.

I’m consistently baffled by how many barriers to safe and happy development there are for children in this country, and many others. Childcare should be free, or at least subsidised to the point where it’s affordable for all who want to avail of it. The current system is full of holes and held up by grandparents and unregistered childminders. The Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman is said to be pushing for a cut of up to 25 per cent in childcare costs in the next budget, which is a no-brainer given Ireland has one of the highest costs in Europe. Free childcare is not achievable by a click of utopian fingers of course, but “it takes a village” is an adage for a reason and it should be a priority.

To all the parents trying to create precious summer memories on a wing and a prayer, you’re doing a great job. September is just around the corner. Try not to worry about the midterm just yet.