Summer Kids: the 80s vs. the Millenials

Summer vacation. What’s better than summer vacation when you’re a kid? Maybe Christmas. Possibly Halloween. Easter sometimes gets a mention when my kids are asked their favorite time of year. But summer vacation aaaaaaahh… there is truly nothing like it when you’re a kid. Even Phineas and Ferb agree.

And while summer vacation in 2013 might look different than summer vacation in 1980-something, there are some universal truths that will never change, regardless of how many gadgets the human species invents.

Only 3 weeks into our summer vacation, here are the top 9 things about summer in 2013 that haven’t changed since I was a kid summer vacationing in the 1980s.

9. There is no such thing as too much swimming. We belong to the Chelmsford Swim and Tennis Club which provides my kids with the opportunity to swim nearly every single day. On a recent vacation to Attitash in New Hampshire, my children chose to skip an Independence Day celebration, complete with face-paint, candy, and fireworks, so they could – you guessed it - swim in the hotel pool instead. I would have argued with them except I would have made the same choice when I was their ages (4, 8, and 10). “I have an idea, why don’t we go swimming, have lunch, swim some more, have dinner, play a game, and then go swimming!”

8. Bed time is merely a suggestion. It doesn’t get dark until nearly 9:00. Even a 4 year old knows you can’t go to sleep when it’s still light out. Remember my May blog about how much fun it is at bed time? Well, summer bed time is even worse than that. Last night my husband and I went to bed before our 8 and 10 year olds. For real! We simply advised them to turn off the lights and put themselves to bed when they were ready. We can’t win the bed time fight, especially in the summer. They have too much energy. So, now that we’ve got them putting themselves to bed, I wonder if we can convince them to start cooking dinner?

7. Sometimes jumping in the pool is more efficient than a shower. Okay, this one’s pretty gross, I admit. Sometimes the kids go a little too long between showers. At least the smell of chlorine is better than body odor.

6. Kids are dirty. Whoever said that the true sign of a child who’s had a fun day is reflected in how dirty that child is by the end of the day, absolutely knew what they were talking about. If your child is clean – and I mean truly clean, not jump-in-the-pool-clean - at the end of the day, you’re doing it wrong!

5. Mosquitoes. Evil, blood-sucking apocalypse-surviving assholes – that’s what mosquitoes are. And that’s all I have to say ‘bout that.

4. Ice cream truck music is to children what the dinner bell was to Pavlov’s dogs. I mean, amIright? It doesn’t matter if we have the same – or better – ice cream in the freezer. They hear the jingle 22 streets away and they become frantic. Now, if I could somehow figure out how to encourage this conditioning and behavior when it comes to bed time, we’d be all set.

3. The food of summer champions: hamburgers and hot dogs. From September to April, we eat about 10 hamburgers and about half as many hot dogs in total. From May – August, we eat about that many each week. Everybody does. It’s a basic human right for every American to eat as many hamburgers and hot dogs as possible during the summer months. I think it’s in the Constitution.

2. Fireflies are always cool. Even with a house full of X-Box and Wii and Netflix and iDevices, kids STILL love to watch fireflies in the backyard. Take THAT Microsoft and Apple. Until you can make the iTouch fly around the backyard blinking, you’ll remain second to real bugs that light up.

1. Down time is for suckers. Sleep until 9:00, swim with the cousins from 11:00 to 3:00, family movie from 4:00 – 6:00, board game from 7:30 to 9:00 – “what are we going to do next, Mom?” It doesn’t matter if we fill every minute of every day with activity; children simply do NOT get tired during the summer.

Until they do. And when they do, you’ll know it because summer-tired is a whole different kind of tired than regular tired. When your children achieve summer-tired, may God have mercy on your soul.

What about you? Does summer 2013 in any way resemble summer 1984?