Mum guilt: the summer holiday edition

On expectations, comparison and our humble reality

One week into the holidays, how are you holding up?

It’s only been a week, and I already feel like I’ve run a marathon when I’m barely one mile in.

I start hyperventilating when I look at all the blank space in the calendar for the rest of the month. Many of us go into the summer holidays with our batteries already flat. We’re the ones that need a break, but instead of that we’ve got long days where school/nursery is closed and all of the usual activities that break up the week are off too. And is it just me, or does the generally scant village get even scanter in the summer?

So by 9am we’re already in the park, wondering how we’re going to make it to 7pm.

Here’s my morning:

5:30am “Mummy, my plaster came off in the night. I need another one right now,” from an indignant Jerry milking the graze he got on his elbow yesterday.

6:30am “Mummy, Rafa is playing Break Your Neck” (a “game” that involves sliding down the stairs head first) and sometimes ends in calls to 111.

7:45am “Mummy, my poo came too quickly.” I clean up, bark at everyone to wash their face and clean their teeth then chase them around the house with T-shirts and shorts.

7:55am “MUMMY, I need a new T-shirt, Frankie weed on me.” FFS!

8am I head out of the house with a dog clipped around my waist and 3 unruly 4-year-olds who definitely haven’t brushed their teeth or hair, which now looks pretty horrific after I gave them DIY chops yesterday.

9am We’ve had babycinnos (and a cortado for me), done our shopping and are in the only local park we haven’t been to so far this holiday and I’m wondering how the hell we’re going to make it until bedtime. I actually formed a mini support group on a bench for the other mums and dads feeling the same. There were a lot of sympathetic nods amongst the screams not to jump off the slide or come and put some more suncream on.

Here’s what nobody says: summer holidays are hard work.

I’ve got the noise of three four-year-olds all vying for my attention and shouting over each other. I’ve got the additional work they seem to create (as if the standard stuff wasn’t enough), the constant cooking and feeding, and of course the fight-breaking up and plaster applying. Honestly, they even fought each other with olive branches the other day. Oh the irony. But it’s not just them, I’ve noticed my mum rage has ratcheted up a notch and I don’t like it.

Yet, social media would have you believe everyone else’s summer looks like a glossy ad for a 5-star holiday resort. It’s BS. Plus there’s the added pressure to “make magical memories” and the clock is ticking as “You’ve only got 18 summers”. Then there’s the spending. One mum told me yesterday that taking the kids to the cinema and dinner was as expensive as a weekend break!

Summer has its own brand of mum guilt.

The Guilt Gap is the space between our expectations of motherhood and our reality. It’s where mum guilt thrives. We hold onto a fantasy: the mum we thought we’d be, the life we thought we’d have, the summer we thought we’d be enjoying. But anchoring ourselves to that fantasy only fuels guilt, because we’re measuring ourselves against a fantasy.

Then we whip our phones out and start comparing. We look at everybody else’s happy holiday photos. Fancy days out. Elaborate play set-ups and wonder why we’re struggling to just keep on top of the laundry. And wish we’d ordered a paddling pool before they all sold out. A good mum would be on top of stuff like that.

We might even start to doubt our own summer decisions. For example we’ve decided not to go abroad this year. Instead, on Sunday, we’re going camping in a field about 20 minutes up the road for 3 nights.

When I see the smily family selfies on the plane or round the hotel pool, I feel a pang of “maybe we should have…” “they are doing it better,” but they are not me.

Camping will be fun, cheap and it’s all I can handle right now. Plus, these are the kinds of memories that I want to make. My mum and aunties still reminisce about the camping trips they went on as kids. My brother and I never get together to relive the standard package holidays and naff hotel bands we experienced as kids.

So if your summer is not looking like a postcard right now, I see you. If you can’t face the big days out our trips abroad, I see you. And, if you need some solidarity, I’m right here in the park with you.

I write honestly about mum guilt, the daily chaos of triplet mum life, and how I stay sane. Subscribe below to hang out: