Surviving the Fall-to-New-Year Frenzy
The other day, a friend was telling me about her Halloween plans. Besides the usual trick-or-treating, she was hoping to find somewhere to take her two little boys pumpkin picking. She hadn't found the time yet and felt a bit neglectful. Pumpkin picking was one of her favorite childhood memories, and she desperately wanted to give her kids the same experience.
Then she admitted that one of them doesn't actually like Halloween much. He's perfectly content with a small bag of candy, and at his age the scary costumes are a bit too much. Her other son doesn't particularly care for pumpkin carving. So really, it all came down to her wanting to recreate her own childhood memories for her children.
Totally relatable, of course. And it got me thinking.
The Never-Ending Season
The pressure we put on ourselves as parents is often quite ridiculous, and I'm just as guilty. Let's start with summer: June through August, three months with the kids at home. (As non-Americans who don't do sleepaway camp, in our case that means my kids are home.) I love my kids, truly, but after three months we’re all ready for normality and structure, no matter how many activities, camps or jobs they've had.
Then comes back-to-school prep, with its endless lists of things to buy. Seriously, why? Surely a pen, a pencil and some paper should do. But no, we need every color in every variety of writing utensil.
Now that I think about it, I should have gone into pencil case design...
Every year there's a new and improved version, one that clearly says: If you don't buy me, your whole school year will be less successful, and you'll fall behind your classmates, who will all have the latest and greatest. Ugh.
September and October bring conferences, back-to-school events and the many prolonged fall festivities: apple picking and baking, pumpkin picking and carving, fall fests with tractor rides, all building to the grand finale, Halloween. That means school parties and costume buying (and how many websites promise on-time delivery, then disappoint?). Heaven forbid a costume gets worn two years in a row. And if you're a teen, you need multiple costumes, one per event. My college daughter's tally this year: four events, four costumes. She's buying them all herself. I point-blank refuse to go bankrupt over Halloween costumes.
Then comes Thanksgiving, followed by the run-up to Christmas: advent calendars, nativity plays, end-of-year parties, presents, stockings. Then New Year's Eve, which I'm not a huge fan of, but once your children reach teenagedom, it's considered an absolute crime not to celebrate it.
I used to dislike January: the holidays over, the winter long, grey and cold. Now I hear a quiet voice whispering: Natasha, January is nearly here. Soon you can put your feet up, drink some cocoa and think about yourself for a while… or at least until spring break.
Whose Memories Are We Making?
It's not that I don't love the individual traditions and celebrations. My friend is right: we want to make it lovely for everyone. We want our kids to have fun and fond memories, and if something worked for us as children, surely we want to replicate it for our own kids. Isn't that what being a good parent is?
But looking back, especially when my kids were little (or even before they were born), many of my aspirations for them were tied to my own agenda.
I wanted to recreate what I’d loved and make up for what I’d missed.
Christmas and advent calendars: I had such fond memories of the long build-up through December that recreating it felt non-negotiable.
Music: I regret that I was never pushed to become proficient at an instrument. Ergo, all my children would learn one (of their choice; I can be flexible) and play well enough to enjoy it and have a creative outlet.
So now I find myself wondering:
How will my kids remember me through all this? As the frazzled woman running left, right and center to please everyone, looking badly in need of a long holiday, or at the very least a stiff drink?
If I set these expectations, will the madness carry on for generations, with my kids feeling the same pressure when they have children, and their children after them?
What do our kids actually care about? Do they really want every single event, or is it more about being together? (That's a question for another post.)
And what does it all cost?
The $150 Apple Lesson
Forget the multiple costumes. Apple picking nearly finished me off. It's another American tradition I genuinely tried to adopt, until the day we drove two hours to a pick-your-own farm a friend had highly recommended. (In fairness, they're a family of three. We're six.) Once there, we discovered that each of us had to buy at least a small bag, at $25 each, to get in. For the six of us, that was $150 just to pick our own apples, plus gas, plus lunch, because naturally everyone was starving.
Could we have walked away? Of course. But we'd arranged to meet friends and built it up as a super fun day. And this, after all, is a post about parents not wanting to disappoint their children. Imagine the childhood memory: driving two hours, seeing the prices, and driving all the way home without a single apple, having let down our friends (and ourselves, of course). That would never do!
And it was a fun day, once I got over the cost and pushed aside the question of what on earth I'd do with $150 worth of apples. (I'll admit I was sorely tempted to slip an extra apple or two into a hoodie pocket. I mean really, $25 a bag? And this was pre-Covid, so I can only imagine what they’d cost today!) There's only so much apple pie and applesauce one family can make, eat or freeze. Naturally, it became my project for the week. My kids lost interest after making their first, and only, apple pie.
My Point
Pick a couple of traditions, go all in on those, and don't sweat the rest. You may have fond memories of pumpkin picking, but your kids might love something else entirely. Create your own traditions, or try a different one each year. What they'll most likely remember is the time you spent together. We (I) need to let go of the idea that unless we do it all, we've somehow let our children down.
And one final warning: if apple picking makes the cut, ask before you go whether everyone has to buy a bag and what each bag costs. Trust me on this one, or you’ll be baking apple pies for the entire neighborhood!