Nanci Olesen's blog

I read an Associated Press article on Monday, July 16, 2007, which reports that vacations are becoming less pervasive in American life, primarily because of lack of money and too few vacation days being offered by most employers. Orbitz, the online travel company, reports that people are “busier than ever with their lives, family activities, and kids… and they find it difficult to take an extended vacation…”

“Let’s just stop for dinner,” I begged from the back seat.

Our son was driving—we were headed home from our family canoe trip in the Boundary Waters Wilderness. We had dropped off one of our daughters at camp and now we needed to get back to the cities.

We had a great trip. We were still getting used to pavement, cars, trucks zooming by us and superstores on the horizon. We were relieved to be in clean clothes with washed hair, but reluctant to depart from the tall pines and loon calls we had known so recently.

I have heard and read many essays and short stories about the days and hours we all spend trying to make sense of this work of mothering. I have written many essays and radio commentaries about the ups and downs and the intricacies of this work. I have wept or chortled when I have heard some of these pieces, and I have inwardly rolled my eyes when I have read some story that, though well meaning, came out sounding trite, cliche or just plain too cute.

“Summer Stress” is a term we’re hearing these days, referring to the idyllic version of summer that we have in our heads and how it contrasts with the busy, expectation filled, expensive, scheduled lives we often end up leading in the summer.

For most parents, the kids are home from school for three whole months. At the beginning of the summer, a parent might find himself already tired from all the end of the school year activities and struggling to get in synch with new schedules.