The June Factor

The dreaded mom’s to-do list has been growing so fast lately, I’m not even sure how to catch up. I keep reminding myself that this is okay, this is just June. June, September, and December, or the infernal school-year triad. Remember, mom? You know this and yet every year you are taken by surprise. And every year, June seems to begin earlier, with end-of-the-school-year stress levels now reaching their peak well before Memorial Day.

But at least, this year, I am not moving.

This has become my daily mantra.

Things could be worse. This year I am not moving.

I do not need to sell appliances and furniture.

I do not need to book movers. I do not need to figure out a place to stay while waiting for our container at the end of August.

I do not need to empty my NYC price-gouged storage space.

I do not need to find a new apartment in France or back in crazy NYC – I already am in crazy NYC, which for once seems like good news.

I do not need to schedule pre-move orthodontist appointments and post-move orthodontist records transfers, and plan adequate three-month contact lens supplies for four family members.

I do not need to go through all our earthly possessions for the third time in three years. I do not need to take daily trip to Goodwill with my Fresh Direct bags - which are a godsend for so many things, but usually things that one would rather avoid doing and rarely involve sipping a Margarita by the pool. Although esthetics aside, they are so capacious and handy, they would make fine beach bags for a mother of four.

But I am already digressing! The point is, there are so many things I do not need to do right now, compared to last June, or June of 2022. So, I should be dancing in the hot, muggy streets (yes we have reached that much-reviled NYC season, thank you for asking) and celebrating this unbearable lightness of being, shouldn’t I?

Except it is still June, and I still have children in school. With APs, and SATs, and French Bac, and all the stress that goes with it. And final exams. And school shows. And middle-school graduations. And dance shows. And a birthday party from hell – more on that in a different post, as I can already tell I will be venting about other things for two pages and will not get to the topic I had in mind when I sat down with my laptop this morning.

What I also DO have, is three children leaving for camp in two weeks. Which is a first. At our maximum we had two. And we were back to just one last summer, with the teenager apparently being too old for having fun in the woods, but sadly, not for stressing over college and internships and supposedly meaningful summer experiences. When I was sixteen, I just spent weeks bored to death with my sick grandparents, but that’s another topic. The point is, I have three children going to various camps for three weeks this summer, and these children’s bags need to be packed. Supplies need to be purchased. T-shirts, and shorts, and headlights, and batteries for the headlights, and sunscreen and bug spray and books. And yes, contact lenses for three weeks. Not to mention swim trunks and swimsuits, which you thought were perfectly fine, but turn out to be either too small or too embarrassing to wear, after being purchased as the epitome of style only ten months ago (yes, my daughter is turning fourteen soon). Yes, my house will be quiet once the kids have disappeared in the woods. And I know that part of me will be missing their mess, their chaos, and their sheer ebullient presence. But the other part of me is deep into unreasonable packing lists right now (outfits for Hawaiian night, and neon night, and cowboy night, AND the fourth of July, really??) and it’s hard not to rue the day we decided it would be a good idea to have our nine-year old try sleepaway camp with his sister. And send the sixteen-year-old boy to a music camp, to – maybe? - beef up his resume after an academically challenging year in France. Which, or course, requires a specific uniform, precluding any type of recycling of old, raggedy white T-shirts and dad’s unused athletic shorts.  

Three full packing lists is what we have. With a limited budget because these camps are just becoming even more ridiculously expensive than they were, and we were starting at lunatic asylum levels already. In France for that price, children would be hosted in a château with 24/7 personal staff, their own high-breed pony, and individual plunge pools. But no such things would be proposed anyway, even to those who could afford them. They would be considered distasteful. I think American summer camps can be wonderful, don’t get me wrong. As a child, I know I would have tremendously enjoyed them. French “colonies” do not offer the same kind of woodsy, frontier-like experience, to be quite honest. And when I look at the camp pictures every summer, I wish I could be there and eat the smores by the fire and fish in the lake and sing all the silly songs and be the star of the musical. The ten-year-old me is still very much here, and the forty-something me is not that different, I am sorry to say. But still. Among the many things that have irked me since I have moved back here, the sheer price of things and the amounts of money needed to give our children the kinds of education and experiences that would be virtually free in Europe, has been at the top of the list. I know salaries are higher too, but the whole approach to money and education and material possessions, is difficult to bear after two years away. Add to that the daily political circus we are currently being served, and it’s hard not to wonder what one is doing here and start packing the children for a 500-euros-a-week rafting camp in the Alps.  Which, I’m sure, would also have a much more minimal packing list. The chances of any Hawaiian night happening on the shores of gorges du Verdon are quite low. Once my daughter outgrows her beloved American camp, next summer, we’ll be sure to send the boys to the French wilderness. Which is not quite as wild, but might save a mother’s budget, and mental health.

What does any of this have to do with cooking, will you ask? Well, absolutely nothing, because who has the time and energy to cook at the end of the school year, in 90° F stickiness? For the next couple of weeks, you will not get much more from me than tomatoes and mozzarella, for which we all agree nobody needs a recipe.

On that note, good luck to all of you mothers as we wrap up another school year and face the daunting prospect of two – sometimes three! – months of children’s constant availability and demands. May the sun be with you, as well as summer camps, maybe, and a packing fairy to assist you in the less glamorous aspects of children’s adventures and time away from you.