The school summer holidays may be here, but the livin’ is far from easy – especially for parents trying to work and navigate summer camps with late starts and early finishes, not to mention the ever mounting, eye-watering costs.
Summer camp fatigue is real, as are over-scheduling worries, but when parents’ annual leave entitlements don’t come close to matching the length of the school holidays, parents feel they have little choice but to send children to camp after camp and suffer the fallout.
Stress, guilt and expense – parents are feeling it all this summer.
Mum of two, Ciara O’Reilly, knows only too well how best laid plans can go awry. Having booked a camp for one of her children, she needed to suddenly rearrange her plans when her child became distressed and decided she wasn’t going into camp that day. It’s an ongoing pressure.
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“You’re trying to book them in for the six weeks – it’s cost me a fortune,” she says. “This week is now a write-off because I know she won’t go back, so I’m going to have to come up with a plan. But that’s another €250 down the drain.”
O’Reilly has another camp booked for her daughter next week – one she’s sure she’ll enjoy – but the hours, 1pm-4pm, will create a logistical headache for her.
“I’m going to have to try and get my brother involved with lifts and looking after her until she goes. It’s taking the village to do this,” she says.
O’Reilly feels “100 per cent” guilty for any distress caused by over scheduling her child’s summer.
“The difference is that I wasn’t in camps when I was growing up. But I was out on the road with my friends. That whole thing is gone,” she says.
“I’m working. I’m on meetings back-to-back ... I’m feeling totally guilty that I put her into all the camps. I’m feeling guilty that she won’t want to go to the camps. I feel guilty that she’s sitting on her own all day. It’s just all consuming.
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“I’m senior enough in my job that I had the luxury of being able to call that I’d work from home [on the day her daughter wouldn’t go to camp], but obviously not everybody has that.
“The way society has gone, especially for women; women are expected to be all in the household, all in the workplace, more in their friend group, more in their family dynamic-extended family. And it’s just so draining, and the guilt that comes with all that when you can’t do it all.
“It’s largely the women’s careers that are being affected, not the blokes,” she says.
Elayne O’Hara is finding the summer juggle extremely difficult. It’s not helped by the start and finish times of summer camps.
“They start at 10am and then they finish at 1:30pm or 2 o’clock ... It’s the juggle,” she says.
“I work 9-5:30pm and I end up never taking my lunchbreak or any breaks during the day because you’re always on the road with the kids. It’s just full on.”
She references Instagram posts that remind parents that you only have 18 summers with your children.
“It’s supposed to be enjoyable and I just feel all we’re doing is being stressed,” she says.
O’Hara has two children. Her seven year old has ADHD and is tired.
“She could probably do with a break” O’Hara says, but for the moment, she needs her to go to camps. “I made a deal with her. I said ‘you have to go into camps for July and then I’m taking unpaid leave for August’ “.
It’s not something O’Hara has done before but she feels she’s too stressed.
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“It’s not enjoyable and we’re supposed to enjoying this ... I’d be afraid I’d have a breakdown. It’s too hard,” she says.
O’Hara’s partner is also trying to share the load, taking time off when she needs to work long days.
“I think that it’s very hard for other people to understand the juggle really, if they’ve never experienced it.”
Her 82-year-old father lives midway between her house and where the summer camps are held. Sometimes she drops her daughter to him to continue the journey, so she can get home earlier to try “and scrape back that extra 10 minutes to be back at my laptop an extra 10 minutes earlier.”
Paula Mooney has two children and both she and her husband have “full-on” jobs.
“You only have your four weeks holidays so we have to have them in childcare pretty much most of the summer, bar two weeks holiday,” she says.
The cost doubles over the summer months as her younger child is in creche, while her 10 year old goes to a childminder and summer camps.
“You’re hoping your childminder doesn’t mind dropping and collecting them for you. It’s a lot of extra cost, but then I think you feel so guilty as well because you’re working six weeks of the eight weeks of the holidays,” she says.
Mooney notices that parents don’t really help each other out in the way that they used to when it comes to sharing lifts to and from camps.
“You go up and everyone is there collecting them, but you’re afraid to say ‘do you want to do [a shared run]’, because it’s like you don’t care for you kids if you do suggest it ... you feel judged,” she says.
The huge costs of childcare and camps over the summer are restrictive, she says.
“I might take an extra day off during the week, and then you bring them out and it costs a €100 to go to a pet farm. It’s hard to get the balance right.
She feels the pressure and guilt is disproportionately heaped on mothers’ shoulders.
“As women it’s so hard, because everything, on the whole, falls on us” she says. “We’ll get through it, like we do every summer. But you do dread it.”
Sinéad O’Moore has two children and is self employed. She made a decision to take a step back at work this summer because she became ill after last year’s juggle. It’s not without consequences.
“If I’m not at my desk working, no one is paying me. So, over the summer I have to accept that I’m earning less and I’m paying more,” says O’Moore, owner of The Brand Story and host of Stretch Marks podcast.
“I have to keep working because I have to keep my business open. I have to reduce my capacity with my clients because I know that the camps finish at two. And I’m paying €100-€120 a week to keep them in camp. You just feel the pressure constantly.”
She works at night on her podcast and, as the “default parent”, feels her summer gets derailed.
“And by September I am burnt out. I’m trying to be less burnt out this year because I was so sick last year,” she says.
“The system is built for a time when mothers were at home. And camps every now and then were a luxury for their kids so that they could go and play with their friends. It was designed as a means to help parents be in employment.”
Reduced income isn’t O’Moore’s only concern. She’ll need to build her business back up when school returns, and doesn’t know how long that will take.
In reducing her workload for summer, she says: “I have put myself in a position where I’ve given myself the freedom, but I have no mental freedom. You’re forever stressed, worrying, where is the business coming from”.
Overscheduling children is something that parents need to consider, however psychotherapist Bethan O’Riordan, who runs the Calm Parenting Community, says she’s very “conscious of childcare”.
She recommends parents “book in the minimum that you need your child to be minded and cared for so that your child has time to unwind”.
Summer is an opportunity to rest, she says and for children to engage in free play, which she explains is vital for their development.
In trying to decide how many summer camps is too many, O’Riordan advises parents to “tune into your child. What sort of stimulation is too much for them? Think socially, educationally, academically.
“Outside of the camps, create that downtime. If you’re working don’t be afraid of screens. Not all screentime is equal.”
For children who might become upset about having to attend camp, O’Riordan says the approach to take depends on the child.
For some, gentle reassurance will suffice. “Other times we really have to listen to what the child is saying. Do they need down time? Do they need more time with you?” she says.
When it comes to managing parenting guilt, O’Riordan says to remember that you’re not alone.
“This is incredibly hard, this juggle,” she says. “Be really boundaried if you can with your time. Look at your schedule. When can you be away from your screen? When can you be away from work. Parenting is about quality, not quantity. So, when you’re with your children, be present.”
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