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When my kids were in elementary school, the weeks between spring break and summer vacation seemed to go by at warp speed, mostly because I spent most of that time running the children from event to event in between work meetings.
From Spring Sing to Mother’s Day breakfast to field day and beyond, there was always a reason to be at school, send something to school or procure some special outfit for some event at school. It was exhausting.
Cropped shot of a mother comforting her little son at home laflor/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Cut to the teen years. You might think it’s a little less intense, and perhaps parents of teens are even just a bit nostalgic for a Spring Sing, but sadly that’s not the case. Sugar-fueled class parties were replaced with stress-fueled study groups for Advanced Placement exams, and field day morphed into an endless loop of sports tournaments (all of which require at least 45 minutes of commuting), not to mention prom, volunteer hours, extra credit projects, awards ceremonies, banquets, fundraisers and requests for parent volunteers to assist with a long list of school events.
“Maycember” is a term that online content creators the Holderness family coined to describe the sheer chaos of the month of May, much like the month of December. Regardless of the age of your kids, both May and December are packed with social and school-related responsibilities, and it can become overwhelming. Sometimes it feels like Mayhem.
Between the nonnegotiables, such as standardized testing and preparing for finals, and the carrots dangled to help them succeed, such as extra credit projects and appearances, teens are running on empty as the school year comes to an end. While it’s certainly a nice gift to earn extra credit points by attending a school event, time off to rest on the weekend is another gift most exhausted teens can use as they crawl toward the finish line.