A DAD'S LIFE:Our 10 year old expects so much of her summer
LAST WEEK of school. There’s a lot of this going on: “Only four days left.” “Only three days left.” “Only two . . .” You get the picture. They’re a little excited.
We’re a little worried. Where they see long, empty days, we see long, empty days, only now our job is to fill them.
The first weekend is a toe dipped in the water. It is not any old weekend, somehow, suddenly, it is imbued with portentous nature. It is a taste of the summer to come. It must, I can tell by their faces, be spectacular, life-changing, awesometastic. It’s the same as usual. Which, I might add, is pretty damn not bad.
It’s so easy when you’re seven. What’s not to like? You’ve got cold drinks in the fridge, paper to draw on, a trampoline on which to bounce, dogs to walk, bikes to ride, yo happy days, here we are.
It’s not so easy when you’re 10. She, in recent times, has become a victim of expectation, a slave to her own hopes and imaginings which mark time on calendars, informing when the drab is to be endured (schooldays) and fun is to be had (holidays!).
All the books and comics and TV shows tell her, summer is here, there should be nothing but song, dance, joy and laughter in your life.
She wakes that first Saturday and the sun rises in the east, her cereal tastes the same and her dad still insists football rules on telly for the duration of Euro 2012. Where are the dancing girls, she wonders, the fanfare to accompany the momentous occasion that is the first day of the summer holidays?
Saturday takes care of itself like Saturdays do. There is a schedule, activities to partake in, places to be. So, even without the great hurrah, the sense of no school mapped out in front of her for two months is enough to sustain enthusiasm. Difficulty only arises on Sunday.
Sunday. We don’t drag ourselves to Mass like back in the day, but there is still a weight in the air on a Sunday morning. A stillness. Shops may be open 24 hours but there is a slowness. It might just be non-practising Catholic guilt for her parents, but Sunday morning always feels like a vacuum, like we really should be doing something virtuous and no amount of coffee, croissants and paper reading is ever going to make us forget that.
Thank you, Catholic education for ensuring the one day of the week we always have free is ever so slightly tainted.
But her sinful self has never been forced into a church on a Sunday morning, so how come she feels the heavy weight of the Sunday drag too? It must be first Sunday blues. We take it slow. There’s none of the frenetic rush of Saturday. The seven year old pulls out her drawing paper, rides her bike, has a bounce. No worries. The 10 year old begins to question the joy factor.
She mopes. She can’t help it. She doesn’t want to, and on any other Sunday morning she’d go about her business, doing her thing, playing with, then antagonising, then making up with her sister. But on this particular Sunday, the weight of expectation is too much.
Her weapon is the tin whistle. She wanders the house playing a sad tune. We ask her what’s wrong. Nothing. What do you want to do? Nothing. Where do you want to go? Nowhere. Why are you fighting with your sister? “I’m not! She started it! She broke my stuff. She lets her friends come into my room and wreck everything I have . . .”
The rant continues as long as it needs to. We nod along and allow her continue, removing her sister from the path of invective and distracting her when she attempts to engage. The rant is the 10 year old’s equivalent of a tantrum. It has to come out, but while it’s in full flight there is no reasoning with it.
It ends and she’s exhausted. We sit her up and feed her, reintroduce the younger to proceedings and remove the blasted, headache-inducing tin whistle from the vicinity. We bring them to the beach so they can run the dogs in the waves and wear themselves out. We make dinner and get them ready for bed.
The holidays proper begin the next day. At some point in that week an acceptance of the reality between fantasy and disappointment will be reached. A routine of sorts will come into play. I hope the sun shines. I want them to love it nearly as much as they do themselves.