“What did we use to do on the weekends?'“ Periodically, this is a question posed between my husband and me or in texts with other parent friends.
Sometimes, the answer is, “I don’t even know.” It’s also been “Brunch.” And even “Literally anything.”
Lately (and by lately, I mean the past couple of years), I’ve been getting the Friday Freakies. They’re a lot like the Sunday Scaries, but they form in the pit of your stomach at the onset of the weekend rather than the end. On the other hand, Sunday is my TGIS because I know the next day. I have child care. I can sigh in relief.
Don’t get me wrong. I love being with my children. I love having family time. But when it starts at 6 am and doesn’t stop for the next 14.5 hours, it’s hard to feel the love. Especially when you’re non-stop catering to toddler demands and needs the entire time. It’s like a video game where you’re just mashing all the buttons, trying to stay alive. Level up with an illness, injury, developmental leap, or whatever.
The weekends can feel like 48-hour marathons of physical and emotional rigor in making sure they’re fed, not hurting themselves (or each other), rested, and engaged, balanced with the guilt of perceived not enough-ness. Too much screen time. Not enough structured activities. Damned if you do, guilt-tripped if you don’t.
There are no breaks for parents of small children on the weekends. If there are, it’s a special occasion, and unless there’s a benevolent grandparent nearby, they paid a hefty price for it.
But, when a real weekend moment happens, boy, do I savor it.
Most parents are not like me in that I am also a freelancer and student, so there are no breaks from work or school. Every day is like the other, with more or less help than others.
Some of these additional obligations are personal choices, and some are not. No matter where the responsibility lies, it’s all hard! When I shared this sentiment with a couple of fellow mom friends, one said that she still anticipates the weekend but gets overstimulated by 1 pm on Saturday. LOL. I admire the optimism!
I ran into a college friend at a chic Hollywood co-working space this week. We caught up on our lives, and then each exchanged some bits of gossip about mutual friends from school. He told me about a guy from his fraternity whose wife left him and their two kids. His eyes widened, searching for my horrified reaction. Can you believe that another mother would do that??
“Wow, she must not have had any support,” was my response because it didn’t shock me. I could believe it. And it made me sad. Every day must have felt like the worst weekend ever.
Despite the Friday Freakies, I do also look forward to the weekends, especially when we have plans with friends, a t-ball game, or low-key 4th birthday parties to punctuate the time with mile-markers through the doldrums. There are bright moments that help propel you through the day until bedtime, when you’re allowed to collapse for an hour and a half before bed.
I scroll Instagram to see my child-free contemporaries or younger friends doing all the brunches, hikes, concerts, art shows, and spontaneous hangs I used to enjoy on the weekends, and I majorly get the sads and the FOMOs.
This isn’t meant to sound like whining or even a foreboding warning to child-free people to stay away from children. It’s just the honest pangs of reality we aren’t supposed to admit because we made some life choices––that we very much love and do not regret!
I don’t need to tell you that children’s museums and playgrounds are fun for kids of all ages. Toddlers eating ice cream are very adorable. And having a tiny hand gripping yours on a leisurely Sunday walk is an incomparable feeling. That’s what everyone else sees when they scroll on Instagram, and for some people, it majorly gives them the sads.
Earth is, unfortunately, cursed with perpetually greener grass. If you’ve found a little patch that’s just the right verdant hue, consider yourself lucky.
For the rest of us, we’ll keep working for the weekend, or weekending for the workweek––whatever stage of life you may be in.