Spring Break, the cruelest prank the public schools system ever played on the average working American parent.
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1. Denial.
It happens every year. The Friday before Spring Break starts, you say to your kid’s teacher, “See you next week!” and the teacher says this dreaded phrase:
“Nope, see you in two weeks!”
No, you think. It can’t be Spring Break already? I thought it started in April?
Wait, it is April next week? Wasn’t it just February? Didn’t it just snow? It can’t be…
Sorry moms and dads, Spring Break can’t be avoided. It creeps up on you like toe fungus or a toddler on carpet with sticky hands.
2. Anger.
Remember when Spring Break lasted one week? How is it that our kids are now home 16 full days in a row? This is a failure of the educational system! No wonder my child can’t add fractions, he’s pretty much never in school. He’s going to be living with us until he’s thirty at this rate.
Who are these two weeks off really for? Unless you’re a secret Rockefeller, you’re not going to be taking two full weeks off work to travel with your family. This is America, the land of two jobs and a paper route! Sorry we can’t all just jet away to our yachts for a fortnight.
Screw this!
3. Bargaining.
It’s the first Monday of Spring Break and you’re standing at your city’s Parks and Recreation office begging them to let your kid into a day camp. Any day camp. I don’t care if it’s ballet or robotics or water aerobics. These kids have to get out of the house.
“What can I give you?” you ask the clerk, a greasy-faced college student who has never seen a parent so desperate. “I will pay you double. Do you want to just keep one of them? The older one is cuter but the younger one can add fractions.”
Sorry, doesn’t work. Now you have to bargain with them – you’ll give them ice cream if they just stay quiet for one little hour while you lead a conference call from home.
They sense the desperation in your voice and raise the ante. Now you owe them a Frappuccino, five packs of Pokemon cards, and a trip to the arcade. Fine. Just lock yourselves in your room with an iPod and don’t come out until 4:05pm. Thank you very much and nice doing business with you both.
4. Depression.
It’s 7 a.m. and they’re already awake and arguing over who gets the last bowl of Chocolate Mini Wheats. How is this happening? Isn’t Spring Break celebrated for children being able to sleep in? 7 a.m. on a normal Wednesday means dragging them out of bed and forcing an English Muffin into their mouths while they despair over how early it is.
7 a.m. during Spring Break, when you were up all night doing the work you were supposed to do the day before, means your kids are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and wondering what time you’ll be up to start negotiating with them over quiet hours and Frappuccinos.
It’s dark, parents. It’s a dark, dark time in your life.
5. Acceptance.
Somewhere around the beginning of week two you start to hit your groove. They watch YouTube (Just don’t tell me what they’re watching! I don’t want to know!) while you pound out the bare minimum of work you can from your creaky home computer without getting fired. They’ve mastered keeping quiet in the car while you make necessary calls, and you all enjoy your Frappuccino bribes together at Starbucks while reading magazines.
You designate every afternoon a dedicated time for fun – hanging out with friends, bike rides, hikes, lemonade stands. You figure out how to do all this while monitoring emails from your boss on your phone.
Suddenly it’s the last Sunday before they go back to school and you realize how much you’re going to miss your little accomplices.
And man, packing school lunches every morning sure does suck!
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Also read: 33 Ridiculous Things You Had No Idea You Had to Teach Your Kids
Photo: Flickr/4Neus
I enjoyed this Joanna. The benefit of my being old is that I remember my parents looking forward to it as much as us kids. In the old days it was “clean up week” which meant that the parents had a loooong “to be done” list for us.
Ha! Good idea…