It is back to school season and I dislike it as much as my kids or my wife, a teacher.
I remember a commercial for an office supply store from several years ago. A parent danced down the aisle, gleefully tossing a variety of school supplies into the cart as two children shuffled, sadly behind. The sound overlay was a chorus of parents singing “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”
That isn’t me.
I hear parents so often talking about how much they love when their kids go back to school and I don’t understand.
I absolutely love summer with my children. I love knowing they are spending their days with their mom and grandparents, playing, caring for the farm and riding horses.
Just as much, I totally enjoy summer evenings with my kids. Their summer break makes my life far more rewarding.
I enjoy my evenings more when I can go for an after-dinner bike ride with them.
It is a great day when we can delay dinner so the boys and I can shoot guns or bow and arrows after work.
I like staying at the playground later than we should or hiking just a little further because, while I do, they don’t need to get up early.
I like evenings spent riding in the passenger seat of a Gator while a son races through the hay field.
I love hearing my kids play outside for hours, yelling “Daddy, push me!” or “Hey Dad, look!”
I like watching tv with them and letting them sleep downstairs or better yet, outside.
I like playing rummy and talking till late.
But when school resumes, all this goes away. The kids need to get up early. They come home tired. They have homework. There are “school shoes” that can’t get muddy. There are lunches that need packed, clothes that need washed and other chores to be done.
And all of these rob minutes with my children from me. Fun, activity-filled evenings are pushed off weekdays and relegated to the weekends.
My oldest will be a senior this year. He left for a couple weeks this summer to attend college classes and I was shocked how much I missed him. To be fair, almost anytime I see pictures of my children, I miss them, that child in the picture. I love the kid they are and the one they are becoming, but I deeply, deeply miss the child in the picture that I will never see again, that I will not get another second with.
I value education. I think school offers so many opportunities for our children to grow academically, socially, emotionally.
But I only get 18 summers with my children and not all of them will be fantastic. There will be some when they are too small to really appreciate the summer, and some when college or job and other previews of adulthood will occupy their time. Some summers will be filled with sadness, sickness or difficulty and the joy will be tamped down.
So when all the stars align and the sun stays out late, I want to be there with my kids.
–Mac Cordell is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.