I love having my kids out of school and around the house during the summer months, but filling up their non-school hours is a full-time job. Kids today are so wired to be busy every minute of the day that without school they require constant stimuli to avoid boredom. When we were kids, boredom was part of the appeal of summer vacation. It made the days feel longer and it forced us to entertain ourselves. Of course, that can also lead to problems, because an idle mind is the devil’s workshop. Today, it’s up to us parents to keep our children constantly involved, engaged and entertained. As we all know, this is not always easy since most kids require instant recognition and gratification (thanks to this generation’s technological lifestyle). This can drive a lot of parents certifiably crazy.
Take my two daughters…please. Over and above the typical day-to-day craziness associated with their cosmetics, hair, clothes, shoes, bedrooms, bathrooms, closets, phones, chores, friends and battles with the adult lady who lives in our house (commonly referred to as Mom), we have new kinds of crazy to deal with that is directly related to the fact that my little girls are now young ladies, aka junior women.
When they were young or little the “crazy factor” was also little. Sure it got crazy at times getting peanut butter out of the dog’s fur, dressing and undressing Sweet Street/Polly Pocket/Barbie/Bratz or American Girl dolls three hundred times a day and playing the role of Prince Eric in the home theatre production of Little Mermaid. Looking back on it now, that was a fun kind of “toddler crazy” compared to the “teenager crazy” that now fills my house.
My soon-to-be sixteen year old, let’s call her Hannah because that’s her name, is really driving me crazy. I mean literally driving me crazy. She has her learner’s permit and has been “taking the wheel” every time we get into the car. She always wants to drive and will find compelling reasons why she needs to drive to her friend’s house, the gym, the grocery store, Santa Rita Jail or the Governor’s office. She’ll also go just about any place I need to go (proctologist office excluded), just so she can drive. Unlike having a qualified chauffeur, being a passenger actually takes concentration and active involvement when you have a student driver behind the wheel. Don’t get me wrong, my daughter is probably as responsible as any sixteen year old out there, but there lies the problem. Teenagers are all text absorbing, attitude giving, Snap-Chatting, gum chewing, YouTubing, hormone raging, late sleeping, Zombie loving demons. This is a description of someone qualified to pet kittens or watch movies, not drive the family SUV. In four short months, the State of California, is in all likelihood, going to give her a license to drive on her own. Are they crazy? It seems like just yesterday that she was wearing Huggies Pull-Ups. Now she’s going to be allowed to operate a moving vehicle… on the streets…by herself? That’s crazy!
When it comes to car related expenses, most teenagers are completely unaware that the whimsical bill-paying fairies (Dad and Mom) who watch over their home on a monthly basis, now must budget for an additional driver. Unlike Aladdin’s magic carpet, cars take gas. Gas costs money. So does insurance, maintenance and air fresheners. Believe me when I say that the average teenager’s car smells like a cross between an over ripe school locker and a sweaty shoe barn, so air fresheners are necessities. They’re also going to find that a carwash isn’t free and I charge standard water rates to use the hose at home.
Hannah’s impending transportation independence will relieve my wife and I from having to drive her everywhere, but this summer, it’s just driving us crazy.
My younger daughter, who we will call Claire, is an incredible athlete. She is equally gifted as a swimmer and soccer player. It is a source of joy and pride to watch her compete in sporting events. Getting her to practices and the email correspondence associated with each sport is what’s driving her mother and me crazy. The swim season starts in late January with stroke clinics. This is followed by pre-season conditioning beginning in early April, and the actual swim season runs from May 1st through mid August, assuming the swimmer qualifies for the County Championships (which my daughter always does). Soccer, which you would think runs opposite of swim, begins its pre-season workouts pm July 1st. This is followed by pre-season tournaments beginning in mid-August and the actual soccer season runs September 1st through mid-April because once they get to the U-14 level, the league must break from November 1st through the end of February for the high school soccer season. Are you beginning to see our calendar dilemma? There are so many days where she has two sports scheduled at times that often run together or slightly overlap that we’re going crazy getting her to where she needs to be. We often have just seconds to get her from the West side of San Ramon to the base of Mt. Diablo. During the fall, once school is back in session, it’s not uncommon for our four member family to each eat dinner alone or share a family meal at 11:30 pm. I wish we had another driver in the family.
Sports email crazy is something totally different from sports logistics crazy. During a typical swim season, it’s not uncommon to receive 10- to 20 emails per week about practice times, meet instructions and volunteer sign-up duties. I shouldn’t really complain because the previous two years, when I served as swim team President, the number of emails I received was closer to 10-20 per minute. Those crazy emails topics included everything from pop-up tent restrictions, cooler size limitations, private lesson availability, climate control – outside alcohol consumption – by the parents not the swimmers, inappropriate pool attire – again parents (usually the mommies), and volunteer job cancellations. Fortunately, soccer is a little less email crazy thanks to the invention of Shutterfly. However, if you serve on the board of any youth sports program you have my utmost respect, admiration and sympathy for the amount of crazy emails you deal with during any given season. They don’t make over-the-counter headache medication strong enough to deal with all the crazy parents convinced their child is the next Michael Phelps, Mia Hamm or Derek Jeter.
Finally, my girl’s interest in boys (and the boys’ interest in my daughters) might actually make me homicidal crazy, but that’s another article for another day. For now, let’s just say, as much as I love the additional quality time my wife and I get to spend with our loving offspring, you’re crazy if they think we would want the summer to last longer than it already does.
Leave a Reply