Before the sun goop is finished off, before we parachute into stores to buy next year’s school supplies, and before the days cease to be both hazy and lazy, I need to reinforce that central to this summer’s goings on is my children spending a little more time with their grownups.
Although we are just thawing out from the winds and rains of winter, it is already time to anticipate our teens’ summer whereabouts. Whether our children earn money, spend money, volunteer, entertain, insist on being entertained, engage in art, music, sports or engine-building classes, attend day camps, attend sleep away camps, or just stay home and complain about “how bored” they are, it behooves us parents to prepare for those eight to ten weeks during which “the big kids” are home.
In my family, “summertime with teens” means, for the most part, I watch while they take on various pursuits. For instance, none of my musicians are interested in formal lessons, but all of my visual artists want time to continue to explore their techniques. While they create, however, they want to be “left alone.”
Furthermore, my two volunteers are of mixed opinion. One intends to continue her work; the other sees such giving as linked only to the school year.
One of my family’s martial artists will train until August, the time when his teacher takes a well-deserved break. The other will continue to subject himself to pummeling throughout the summer calendar.
One child wants another season of sleep-away camp. A sibling is interested only in daytime options.
Our oldest must face the streets as she learns how to drive. Concurrently, she must spend weeks in a course which will, I hope, prepare her for college entrance exams.
The next in line is determined to find a labor-intense part-time job in order to generate pocket money. The third is contemplating which sleepovers will occur when.
Our youngest, not yet a teen, seems to be caught up in envisioning “endless days” of board games, of tag, and of reading. Especially for this offspring, “summer” is equated with unstructured time.
This summer, nonetheless, the kids’ vacation weeks also need to be weeks during which I am more involved with the kids. My teens and their younger sibling, fortunately, are getting both older and more independent. Soon their age and their development will necessitate their branching off to new domiciles.
As liberating as it is, for my own growth, to have arrived at the mother-of-teens stage, it is key, for this period of our shared lives, that all of us, simeltaneously, hold still long enough to get to know each other better.
Whereas heart-to-heart talks have long replaced “adventures” to museums or to parks and whereas my editing their writing is more valuable to them than is my participating with them on jaunts around our city (“Mom, it’s a little embarrassing to take you shopping with me. I didn’t hurt your feelings, did I?), the common denominator in all of these activities is my being present in their lives.
Thus, before the sun goop is finished off, before we parachute into stores to buy next year’s school supplies, and before the days cease to be both hazy and lazy, I need to reinforce that central to this summer’s goings on is my children spending a little more time with their grownups.
