Parenting: Summer's Promise Turns to Guilt

The Struggle of Irish Summer

Irish winter is relentless. It’s not just the rain that doesn’t stop for months, or the cold air that bites your face, but the fact that we are forced to live through an age without seeing the sun or daylight. It’s when the moon hits your eye, and it’s 3:45 pm that feels like an afternoon in January. It’s how I have to defrost my car before and after work. It’s how life becomes more and more unsustainable for all living things, including myself.

I spend all 87 months of winter waiting for summer, only to realize that when it finally does arrive, I had my rosé tinted glasses on. Not only does summer take place over four days in Ireland, it’s also a lethal cocktail of fun, pressure, FOMO and guilt.

The Pressure of Summer

Summer, for me, is all about sunburn, existential dread and an overwhelming feeling that I’m not doing summer properly, that I’m not summering enough, or in the right ways. Summer is supposed to be the best season, the one that changes everything. It’s supposed to be cocktails, bare feet in sand, freshly cut grass and early morning hikes.

Then summer arrives, and I realize that I actually can’t do any of these things, because I have a full-time job that rudely still requires me to show up, and two teenagers at home who, at this time of year, are basically hormonal, nocturnal cats with phones. I spend the day sweating away in the office and come home to two fully refreshed and bright-eyed teens who say hurtful things like “Lily flew to Dubai this morning.”

The Social Media Effect

Around the same time, everyone on Instagram starts living their best lives. They are at the beach on a Monday afternoon, taking those glowy golden-hour selfies. Or they are on holidays, taking amazing travel photos with the whole family in coordinated outfits. They’re all top-class BBQ chefs, and travel bloggers. And when did you all take paddleboarding lessons? Without me?

Every year, we optimistically tape a summer bucket-list to the fridge, and from there it mocks me every time I pass by it. We try to cram some activities in around already very full schedules and then feel obliged to pack eight activities into the first or only sunny day. We wait months for a beach trip, and then realize that no one actually likes going to the beach, because it’s at least an hour in the car, plus traffic, and the back seat becomes Fight Club.

The Struggle of Making Memories

Everything is sticky, sweaty and covered in sand, and I have a nervous breakdown trying to ‘make memories.’ It would be easier, and more predictable, to Sharpie up a sign that says “sneeze a lot and feel bad in sunshine” to the fridge, because ultimately that is how I spend summer: sneezing and feeling sad.

Every second spent indoors on a sunny day feels like nothing short of a failure in character, and always brings a crippling amount of guilt that even the highest factor of SPF can’t block. If I spend a rainy Saturday in October reading my book on the couch, I feel like I’m being productive. But on a sunny day, the very thought of staying indoors is blasphemy.

The Guilt of Missing Out

The guilt starts from the second I wake up. “You can’t stay inside! You have to get out and enjoy it, you have to drain every last drop of sunlight from this day. What do you mean you don’t have plans? People are at the beach! Everyone else is already in a beer garden with a colourful drink! You should buy a paddleboard.”

I have to find an activity – but not just any activity; an outdoor and summer activity – immediately. And then I question my existence for the remainder of the day. Did I pick the right activity? Am I summering enough? Am I having enough fun?

The Lemonade Analogy

Our summer is like a single lemon, and we have to squeeze every last drop out of it and somehow make the most exciting and adventurous pitcher of lemonade. Somewhere around this point I realize I am not enjoying summer at all, not even a little bit.

I like the days when expectations are on the floor, and my book is on the couch. Winter doesn’t need me to be anything; winter loves me for who I am, and there are no wasted days in winter. What’s not to love?