Don’t promise anything, but do plan many things. When kids are involved, starting a day without a plan is a dangerous game that rarely avoids bickering, cajoling and financial ruin. One experienced school-holiday survivalist (mum friend) said they always have a large visual calendar on the wall, which is great for deterring constant questioning. However, it does lay all your cards on the table. If you put “zoo” on the calendar and wake that morning with four loads of washing strewn across your living room, an unexpected plumbing issue, a pressing email from your boss or just a lacklustre opinion of meerkats, then take your pick of whining, crying or aggressive outburst because you’re getting at least one of those and potentially all three.
I prefer to take the secret schedule approach: always have something in your mind for the day ahead but don’t articulate it until absolutely necessary. Greet the day with the assumption that your children will get on with their lives, create their own fun, get lost in imaginary worlds, whimsy and wonder. And then when that doesn’t pan out, you go to Plan B, your only real plan.
There was a time in my life when I would have advocated for painting, fort-making, supervised carpentry. I’ve frozen figurines in giant blocks of ice so my kids could liberate them with a hammer. I’ve made multi-coloured playdough, cloud-dough and slime. We’ve had Orbees, kinetic sand, melty beads and more, and they’ve all made their way into the grooves in the floorboards, the deep recesses of the couch or – worst of all – the seatbelt mechanisms. Now, all these things reek of lockdown. The thought of them makes my face get hot, the walls start to close in and I picture myself scrubbing slime out of the carpet until I eventually drop dead. Now, I prefer to go out. Anywhere. Just out.
Ditch the messy, elaborate crafts and simply get out of the house.
The best thing about ‘out’ is that it can be anywhere except on your floor, your furniture, in your kitchen or within your walls. All those things are safe when you’re out. When your kid eats a sausage from Mitre10, supporting the Scout Jamboree, and wipes their tomato sauce hands on the wall, it’s not your wall, it’s a concrete pillar. Sure, it’s disgusting, but if you haven’t realised kids are disgusting yet, there’s no way you’re surviving the school holidays.
A cheap winter holiday out that I enjoy is the library. It makes you feel really good about your parenting. Even if the kids don’t read a single book you check out and in a month you have to turn the house upside down to find them again, it’s worth it for the momentary self-satisfaction. Plus, I love librarians – they’re always offering activities in the holidays that they seem genuinely thrilled you’re attending. The museum also slaps and one of the few places that your kids will almost certainly have memories of when they’re adults and not only because of the mild trauma of the volcano house. Nearly all of us raised in Auckland count visiting Centennial Street – lest we forget – among our core memories.
If you must stay in, you must also surrender to chaos and mess. Embrace it. Get out the board games and let the cheating, fighting and meltdowns ensue. One of my fondest school holiday memories is answering my landline phone to hear a family friend rap “Pyjama jammie jam, will you be there, my man?” An invitation to come over for a Monopoly, Milo and pyjama day.
When I asked my children what I should say about surviving the school holidays, my eldest, who’s 12, said: “Don’t try to control your children too much … just set limitations and let them do their own thing.” She obviously subscribes to the Jonathan Haidt philosophy of childhood – let them roam neighbourhoods and get up to mischief – in reality, her idea of “their own thing” is almost certainly something facilitated by me or YouTube shorts. Still, she sounded mature and I was taken aback for a moment. Soon she’ll be a teenager and the school holidays will look very different. I’ll say “The mall? Can I come?” or “Knock, knock. You okay? Can I get you anything?” and if I’m lucky, she’ll acknowledge I’m there.
I recently heard Brandi Carlile on a podcast describing her song You Without Me. It’s about the glimpses you get of your children as they are when you’re not around – the independent person they are growing into: “There you are, my morning star, I wondered when you’d show. Give me just a quick thumbs up, a wink before you go.” When she played it, I cried. And when my daughter gave me her parenting advice, I thought “there you are, my morning star” and immediately felt an urgency to spend as much time with her as possible these holidays.
I guess this means I’m almost out of the trenches. Don’t get me wrong, the holidays require grit, however old your children are, but survival? I know it’s annoying to say when you’ve got blood, sweat and tears on your ripped fatigues, but the phase is fleeting.