With the long vac over, are you relieved to have your life back or consumed by the back-to-school blues? Beverly Au reports
It’s back to school next week – so why do I feel so sad? Is it because I’m heading into Year 12 with months of revision coming up, followed by some pretty momentous exams? Is it because I’m about to start secondary school and don’t like the sound of it at all? Or is it because I’m the new girl in town, just moved to Discovery Bay from overseas, expecting to be the loneliest student in class? No. I’m a mum. I’m one of those mums who other, arguably saner, mothers giggle about. I’m that mum who simply can’t get enough of her kids. I feel sad because the summer holidays are almost over, and they’re my favourite time of year.
Truth is, I begin to mourn the loss of each summer even before it’s over, as the last days of the holiday seem to signify the end of an entire year rather than just another season. With the first day back at school for the autumn term, my children move up a class and gain a year in a matter of moments: there are new teachers and pupils to get to know, tougher rules and new expectations to wrestle with, and the age they were a few weeks ago seems lost forever.
FAMILY TIME LIKE NO OTHER
When the kids are back at school it will be back to that relentless routine – up at 7am, off to school at 8am, home at 4pm with homework, music practice, supper and a bit of YouTube time (MrBeast) before that final heave to get them into bed at a reasonable hour. There is so little time just to be together. Conversations are snatched, there’s barely an hour to relax and have fun as a family and we’re all so tired that tempers are easily frayed. Sometimes it feels as though we’re just four individuals leading separate lives, linked by the same house and the children’s immediate needs. I feel like a constant nag getting them through the day; they feel got at and frustrated with too little time to play.
But in summer all that evaporates. My babies are my own again. They sleep in and pad around the house in their pyjamas. They eat more, play more together and fight less. Suddenly, the outside pressures are gone. There is more time for silliness, more space for laughter and their faces soften with rest, fresh air and sunshine. They find new and innovative ways to spend their time – mine spent the first two weeks of this year’s holiday swapping bedrooms; a spur-of-the-moment decision made entirely by themselves. As an act of creative upheaval, it was superb: it forced them – and us – to clean out their rooms, reassess their possessions, find forgotten things to play with and chuck out the broken and the useless.
Summer is the only holiday when nothing much happens. The Christmas break is full of anxiety, too much money spent and family tensions raised to fever pitch. Easter may be a celebration of spring, but it’s often cold and too much chocolate is consumed. Summer, though, is the season when nagging can stop; we can find our equilibrium as a family again with everyone else away and the diary free of social commitment.
It’s pleasure enough simply to stay home in DB indulging in some serious downtime: swimming at the club, taking leisurely hikes, and checking out the inflatables at Summer Splashtopia.
Then there are the occasional trips into town; a weekend in Coloane maybe. But when Daddy can get a fortnight or so off work, we also like to fly off somewhere. Holidays across Asia are our forté – we love discovering “new” islands: lazing on the beach, getting out on boats, kayaking and snorkelling. Both girls are screaming for their PADI certification. Stays in tropical paradises like Palawan, Koh Tao and Lombok have cemented our sense of family unity and created landmark memories – swimming with dolphins and in phosphorescence, playing hide and seek in the dark, settling in for marathon sessions of Uno.
ANOTHER YEAR BEGINNING
A child’s growth can almost be measured annually by the holiday snaps, which we linger over as the shops start their back-to-school promotions. I have more pictures of my daughters in swimming costumes eating ice cream on beaches during the summer months than at any other time of year. Each new picture resembles the last – blue sky, yellow sand, rocky trails and happy, sun-tanned faces. Only the child is slightly different, the younger one losing her curls, her baby fat; the elder one slowly developing the physique of a woman, with fuller lips and lengthening limbs. With each new set of photographs there is a sad reminder of how few summers like this there are ahead of us.
The last few days of the summer holiday are a time of reflection. We tend to spend them alone without plans or playdates. Perhaps we will indulge ourselves with one final treat, a third visit to the Naked Flowers exhibition in TST is high on my youngest’s bucket list. Perhaps we’ll simply hunker down at home to prepare for what is to come, dreaming up interesting packed lunches, buying new sport shoes, sorting out the uniform. This year’s “back to school” seems doubly significant as my 12-year-old starts secondary school and we will all have to navigate uncharted territory. New buildings, new teachers – by subject this time rather than form – a timetable, new friends to make and an entirely different route to school which she will soon have to, and want to, navigate alone.
Give it a few weeks and my eldest won’t need me to sit with her on the ferry as she starts the commute to her new school in Tuen Mun. Part of me is thrilled that we’ve reached this milestone, the other is so very sad. My daughter is not just a year older, but embarking on a whole new phase of her life. Starting secondary school feels like the official beginning of her adolescence and the number of future happy summers together seem even more limited.
Countless parents complain about the length of the summer holidays: one whole month of family time without structure, without respite, with “nothing” to fill the days. They are no doubt looking forward to the new round of school runs followed by some well-earned time for themselves. It may be an unfashionable admission and make me the mum other saner mothers laugh about, but the school holidays are never long enough for me.