The hardest thing about the summer isn’t the children

It might be us.Every summer seems to bring with it a strange kind of pressure. Pressure to make memories. Pressure to be grateful. Pressure to make the most of every moment. And, of course, pressure not to compare our family life with everybody else’s carefully edited version of theirs.In this Parent Pause, I’m wondering whether summer has a way of exposing all sorts of things in us - our guilt, our exhaustion, our need to be productive and our fear that we’re somehow getting it wrong.Family life was never supposed to be efficient.And children don’t need us to create the perfect summer, they simply need us to stop trying so hard to have one.Thank you for pausing with me. Take care. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe