What You Need to Know
• summer break is near, and parents are already running low on enthusiasm
• Expect snack hoarding, lost pool towels, and wildly inconsistent sunscreen results
• The only consistent rule is there are no consistent rules
1. The Schedule Has Already Disintegrated
School ends, and so does time. Each morning feels like a soft reboot of your life, minus any sense of structure. Eventually, you stop asking what day it is and start measuring time in snack intervals.
Kids wake up at noon, meals happen randomly, and you’re just grateful if someone wears pants by dinner.
2. Sunscreen Will Not Save You
You’ll try your best. You’ll apply, reapply, and still somehow forget noses, ears, or that weird spot behind the knee. Despite your efforts, someone will come home scorched like they were grilling themselves. It’s a tradition now.
Meanwhile, your partner will refuse sunscreen altogether and still claim they “just tan differently.”
3. Snacks Are Now Legal Tender
You think you’ve stocked up. You haven’t. By day two, someone is crying because there are “only three granola bars left,” and your seven-year-old is now trading fruit snacks like they’re rare crypto coins. There’s a secret snack economy, and your kitchen is the black market.
4. Screen Time Morals Will Collapse
You start strong. Limits are set. Rules are made. But then the second week hits. Suddenly, iPads are educators, video games are social development tools, and you’ve convinced yourself YouTube is “kind of like a documentary if the algorithm behaves.”
Screen time becomes screen survival.
5. Summer is Financially and Emotionally Reckless
Camps cost as much as rent. Ice cream is a daily line item. That pool membership you swore you’d use? Turns out, you’ll go twice. Summer doesn’t just drain your energy. It drains your budget, your fridge, and your last thread of patience.
And yet, you’ll smile through it all because someone made a macaroni lizard and said they love you.
