When you think of your busiest season, I bet you think of holiday time. You’re trying to meet your end-of-year deadlines while displaying your Most Festive Self throughout a barrage of holiday events and obligations. It feels like too much, but you push through with the spirit of the season plastered across your face, your holiday-card-ready smile showing only a hairline fracture of the exhaustion that you’re actually experiencing inside.
You think seasons come, and seasons go.
But you don’t see Maycember coming.
Maycember, as moms with school-age kids know, refers to the busy season families experience at the tail end of spring. At school, kids have their long-awaited concerts, award ceremonies, theme days, proms, moving-up events, field trips, field days, all the days on all the fields. Outside of school, they’ve got tournaments, recitals, musicals, and end-of-year showcases. I don’t know when everything became so commemorative, but it sure feels like there’s a lot to commemorate, and it’s all happening at once. With balloon arches.
One could argue that it’s always been this way, but I’ve thought a lot about what makes this version of May so unmanageable, and it has nothing to do with May at all. Parents and kids are being forced to address the logistics and decisions for their summers and falls earlier and earlier. Already, I’ve had to register my daughters for their dance classes and religious school, fill out their interest forms for art class, and decide whether my kindergartener should try out for a fall cheer team (which, of course, is happening now). We also have summer camp forms and orientations, and even next year’s school orientation before school lets out.
At the same time we’re celebrating this year, we’re planning for next year. It’s the mashup no one asked for, and it’s driving us insane.
The Cost of Maycember
To be clear, Maycember isn’t just difficult to manage due to the strain on our time. These events and obligations come with direct and indirect costs, which are all hitting at once and making me sweat as I even think about opening up our next Amex bill. It’s costing us more than $750 to buy tickets for our whole family to attend every recital and show our daughters are performing in. The program and playbill ads cost money, too. There are grad gifts, teacher’s gifts (we’ve spent more than $100 already), and another $200 in miscellaneous gifts, yard signs, and special treats “to celebrate” all the things. We’re also being charged the balance for their summer camp tuition — well more than $1,000 for the final camp payment and all the gear they’ll need to attend — all while shelling out registration fees for next year’s activities — another $400. And who knows what else will pop up, imploring the dollars to fly out of my wallet? TBD!
I know this may all sound like champagne problems and that we’re oh-so privileged to be in a place to digest even some of what I just shared. You’d probably feel differently if you knew us, but I’m not on a mission to convince you of that. One thing I can assure you is that it’s all relative. During times of economic uncertainty, when layoffs are prevalent and prices are rising, it’s hard to just roll with the punches and apply that “December to Remember” mentality to this Maycember madness — but the guilt we feel if we don’t is evergreen.
Parents always want to make it special for their kids. No one wants to have to choose between celebrations and registrations, though it often comes to that — either that, or a lingering credit card balance. Neither is the outcome we’re looking for.
It’s hard to mask the emotional and financial pressure, and honestly, that’s what upsets me the most. I worry that my kids could interpret the way we cope with this chaos as a lack of enthusiasm — or worse, annoyance — for what they’ve got going on. My 9-year-old daughter keeps thanking me, and I know that’s super sweet, but I’m pretty sure it’s just because I’m wearing the stress all over my face. I can’t enjoy what’s right in front of me, because I’m too busy worrying about what’s next — and how much it’s going to cost.
This is our world now: too fast to enjoy it. I think our kids experience this, too. Their version of Maycember probably feels just as chaotic. Imagine being burnt out from a long school year and having a schedule so jam-packed, you can’t even take a moment to rest.
Can’t it just be May? The month when the pools open up in the Northeast? The unofficial start of summer? They should be winding down and thinking about what will make the next few months most meaningful to them. They shouldn’t be meeting next year’s teachers and coaches. They shouldn’t be trying out for next year’s travel teams and competitive programs. They are being pushed so hard, they can’t feel the grass under their feet for more than a second. How can they ever learn to sit with their accomplishments, disappointments, and goals from the year, when they’re always being pushed toward the next ones?
It’s unfair to expect any family to be able to diffuse the emotional and financial stress of this time and thrive without acknowledging how unsustainable and ridiculous the circumstances have become. There isn’t one person, place, or program to blame — it’s an ecosystem that pressurizes the more it optimizes, and the more we permit ourselves to be strained by it. Of course, we can’t change certain deadlines. But we can suggest and collectively push for changes that improve things.
For example, schools can have one theme day instead of a spirit week. Parent volunteers can collect funds once at the beginning of the school year or sports season for all of the gifts, snacks, and special events. Try-outs and registrations for next year can wait until later in the summer. And I hope we can all agree that no child needs a candy bouquet or a balloon arch to know how proud we are of them.
At home, we can push back on the inertia of the season, too. We can teach our kids that we can’t be everything to everyone. We can do great things without giving away our everything — or spending money we don’t have. It’s okay to say no, not now. It’s okay to get our schedules crossed. And it’s certainly okay to remember that most of this is not that deep — it’s the expectations we’ve set that make it feel so important.
Before you go, see what these celebs have said about the teachers who inspired them.
