Gabrielle Gassin

Mixed feelings are implicated in the commencification of school holidays. A time where one is grateful to be freed from the cage of school hours; each new dawn contains unlimited minutes, it seems, as we are no longer bound by an 8:50 start and a 3pm finish, with a circumscribed constraint of half an hour either side for travel purposes. Essential though it is, to note the array of emotions one experiences within the hours from sunrise to sunset, when the children are within your immediate vicinity without a break. It’s a complex dance of despondency and delight, where days are encased with the many joy-filled, twinkling moments provided by Parenting, but also shadowed by joy’s truly duplicitous evil twin – despair. You see, (and if you’re a parent you will know this) children are simply small adults who are unable to manage their behaviour so that it fits within the confines of social normalism. Their barometer for understanding “normal behaviour” is also askew as they absorb, each day and in every moment, what it means to be in the company of other humans and not have them detest your presence.

The Household Manager for this period of time is receiving real-time feedback, as her equanimity is evaluated following every interaction amongst her charges. She is a homebound prison guard, torn between removing the juveniles from her presence in order to stop them from destroying, well, everything, and discombobulating her entirely so that she feels completely dominated by their conduct, and then accidentally rewarding them through this removal by taking them out, therefore unintentionally condoning their illicit behaviour and ensuring its revisitation in future days. It truly is a jive, this hopscotching, unavoidable, fluctuating emotion train. And, it’s parenting, in a nutshell. And it’s also why school was invented.

*Note: some words within this piece of writing have been altered from their original and official form. Write me a comment if you noticed straight away – which ones are they?